s the chief
thought of heavenly blessedness is that it is a release from earth and
from earthly conditions. There is no sorrow, no trouble, no pain, no
struggle, no toil, in the home to which we are going. We shall sit on
the green banks of beautiful rivers, amid unfading flowers, and sing
forever. We shall lie prostrate before the throne, and gaze and gaze
on the face of God.

But this is not the kind of heaven and heavenly life which the
teachings of Jesus Would lead us to imagine. True, he speaks of the
place to which he is going, and where, by and by, he would gather all
his disciples, as "my Father's house." This suggests home and love;
and the thought is in harmony with what we have seen in the life of
Jesus during the forty days,--the continuance of the friendships formed
and knit in earthly fellowships. But the vision of home life thus
suggested need not imply a heaven of inaction. Indeed, no life could
be more natural and beautiful than that which the thought of home
suggests. We have no perfect homes on earth; but every true home has
in it fragments of heaven's meaning, and always the idea is of love's
service rather than of blissful indolence.

We may get many thoughts of the heavenly life from other teachings of
Jesus. Life is continuous. Whosoever liveth and believeth shall never
die. There is no break, no interruption of life, in what we call
dying. We think of eternal life as the life of heaven, the glorified
life. So it is; but we have its beginnings here. The moment we
believe, we have everlasting life. The Christian graces we are
enjoined, to cultivate are heavenly lessons set for us to learn. If we
would conceive of the life of heaven, we have but to think of ideal
Christian life in this world, and then lift it up to its perfect
realization. Heaven is but earth's lessons of grace better learned,
earth's best spiritual life glorified. Therefore we get our truest
thoughts of it from a study of Christ's ideal for the life of his
followers, for it will simply be this life fully realized and
infinitely extended.

For example, the one great lesson set for us, the one which includes
all others, is love. God is love, and we are to learn to love if we
would be like him. All relationships are relationships of love. All
graces are graces of love. All duties are parts of one great duty--to
love one another. All worthy and noble character is love wrought out
in life. All life here is a