294 NATURAL IDEAS OF PLACE. CHAPTER XVIII. HEAVEN AS A PLACE. Natural Ideas associated with Place. ·Analogies.— Christ's Teachings. Spiritual Discernment. - Jewish Faith.- Soul's Constitution demands Place.- Opinions of Harbaugh.— Bliss of Heaven sufficient to satisfy the Soul's utmost Demands. There is a land of pure delight, Where saints immortal reign; And pleasures banish pain."- Watts. ALL the bright visions of childhood with regard to heaven are of a beautiful place. Everything that is fair and lovely is associated with it, and the childish imagination sees the infantile soul that passes away, revelling in scenes of the happy land where the good dwell. But the thought of a better place has entered into the conceptions of maturer years perhaps more frequently; but there are those who would allow the celestial inheritance no "local habitation," who would have the significance of heaven to rest merely upon condition or state. Heaven is in the soul, a germ that is to expand into full flower, the perfection of which is to constitute infinite blessing; life and its discipline emerging into a peaceful, satisfying state, where the soul may repose, and where, like the flower's fragrance on the breath of summer morn, it may yield its grateful tribute to Him who formed it. We notice some considerations in regard to both place and state; but, as we have said before, no merely human conception is at all adequate for the full understanding or appreciation of heaven. This is reserved for the ransomed spirit to experience ANALOGIES IN NATURE. 295 when it is disrobed of mortality, and sees as it is seen, and knows as it is known. If we call heaven a place, and are summoned to answer to its characteristics, we reply, we cannot do so; but because the finite fails to tell the modes of the infinite, does not prove that heaven is not a place. We have never seen a daguerrotype of heaven, so that we can describe its peculiar features. The great Photographer has traced clear and fadeless outlines, but the filling up remains unfinished. Another spring must be touched, and another side of the case opened, before we can look upon the complete picture in all its perfectness and beauty before we can see the wondrous glory and dignity of heavenly expression. 1 We cannot tell the actual scenery of heaven. We talk of heavenly hills, peaceful vales, of flowers, fruits, and streams; but we cannot tell aught of one or the other, save that they glide into our thoughts, and nestle down in the place of anticipation, as among the things that are to be realized, in the day of heavenly revelation, to every soul that has a passport to the celestial land. We find delightful images in the Bible, and we are of necessity influenced much by analogies and hints that nature furnishes, so that we invariably find ourselves transferring whatever is fair and whatever we love below to the place above. Analogies lie in wait at every angle, at every turning of the road, reclining on mossy banks, sporting in running streams, sailing on radiant clouds. Every object offers wings to a fairer land. There are days in every year in which the thoughtful soul is conscious of a fulness of being. The faculties are quickened into supernatural life. The sky then wears a purer, clearer, deeper blue; the clouds soar to a loftier height. They are no longer vapors exhaled from earth, but flakes of beauty let loose from heaven." " There is music in the air, music in the soul, unwritten, unarticulated too, but the heart is filled with it. Not Æolian strains alone, which, beautiful as they are, are often, like generalizations, too broad to touch the chords of human hearts, 296 ANALOGIES IN NATURE. but also home-like variations on every cherished memory, and hallowed "tones of soul, gathered by the great Master into a grand concert of all harmonious things." What Christian has not had hours like these, when he has felt like "singing himself away to everlasting bliss;" when light has fallen upon the features of his heavenly home, and he has discovered a glory that was unutterable? He has stood, as it were, by the gates of the holy city, and heard the sweet-toned melody of angel bands the chorus of the redeemed, until he has himself longed to join "the harpers," and send forth a jubilant anthem to the praise of Him who gloriously redeems; who hath prepared his throne in the heavens, and gathered around it a blessed company, who know nothing but joy and love. He looks around in the world he inhabits, and everything speaks of God. He sees how, here and there, he has touched with his finger and brought forth forms of inimitable beauty, and he has said within himself, "If God has made this world so fair, Where sin and death abound, How beautiful beyond compare Will Paradise be found!" If this earth, which is the abode of fallen, apostate man, a universal scene of moral depravity, if this present a beautiful and variegated prospect of lofty mountains, romantic dells, and fertile plains; meandering rivers, transparent lakes, and spacious oceans; verdant landscapes, adorned with fruits and flowers, and a rich variety of the finest colors, and a thousand other beauties and sublimities that are strewed over the face of nature, how grand and magnificent a scenery may we suppose must be presented to the view in that world where moral evil has never entered to derange the harmony of the Creator's works, where love to the Supreme, and to one another, fires the bosom of all the inhabitants, producing a rapturous exultation, and an incessant adoration of the Source of happiness!" SCENERY OF THE BETTER LAND. 297 We may justly conclude that the scenery of such a world must be inconceivably beautiful, grand of itself, but, in a pcculiar sense, fair to the soul, by reason of its purified vision, and that it is characterized by infinite diversity; so that there will be no weariness in the gaze, though it be prolonged through ages that are eternal. We shall then be living under a different economy from that we know now. There must be an entire change, it is very evident. If there be a material. heaven and a material economy, the governing laws must indeed be different, at least so far as to prevent accident and dis-harmony. Now, with our present organization, the elements are oftentimes hostile to man; but there it is expressly declared that "nothing shall hurt nor destroy in all the holy mountain; " that there shall be no more sea," or sun, and yet all shall be very fresh and very bright. Says one, in speaking of the endless variety of scenery in the heavenly place, "How this can be without those changes which now are inseparable from decay, we are unable to conceive. If there be no decay, how can there be a renewal of vegetation? And if no renewal of vegetation, apparently there can be no succession of the seasons. And as our present enjoyment, and even our life itself, are completely formed upon the succession of the seasons, it becomes entirely plain that there must be a change so radical and so entire as to baffle all attempts to grasp the actual future." Doubtless this is so. Heaven transcends all imagination. Whatever it be, it is God's creation, and as far as God exceeds our poor comprehension, so far does the prepared place exceed our highest thought. We have enough to establish a perfect conviction of its reality. This unquestionable design is revealed in the gorgeous description of John, when the appeal is made to everything that is within us which responds to the love of "form, color, order, and architecture." "I do not in the least doubt," says the author last quoted, "that heaven is, to all intents and for all our needs, a place; 298 CHRIST'S PLEDGE. but I cannot name the properties which constitute it such, nor is there any occasion to do so. To my apprehension, it is enough to conceive of it as meeting the uses of the heavenly life as perfectly, and even more perfectly, than place now meets the uses of this present life." Says another, in his attempts to harmonize Scripture and astronomy with regard to this subject, "Heaven is a place, and not merely a state; it has locality, and is material. We have found, not only that the existence of an outward heavenly place is possible, but also that the deepest investigations of science make it quite probable, and render it entirely unnecessary for us to evaporate into mythological mist-images the bright heaven of the Bible, with the view of harmonizing the discoveries of astronomy and the teachings of faith. The Holiest Place the Salem of peace and rest, we have not seen; but we have seen golden festal lamps hung out on high; our eyes have traced bright avenues stretching in long perspective toward a place which eye hath not seen; we have discovered bright points, as it were minarets, of a celestial city, blaze high up in the realms of eternal sunshine; we have heard harmonies as if from happy worshipping worlds afar; and the aspirations of our longing hearts have gazed earnestly and hopefully into regions of changeless, pure, peaceful, and everlasting rest. If this is not the home of our sainted friends, we are still not sad; for we know that then it is one brighter, holier, lovelier, and better still. Yet "tell not the pilgrim, who is journeying through the dark night, that those tents afar, from which such a friendly light shines invitingly toward him, are empty, tenantless, and cold!" When Christ was about to go away from his disciples, he comforted their mourning hearts by saying, "I go to prepare a place for you." In that place are "many mansions," says the Saviour, and those mansions are to be the home for saints of all ages, "not for these alone" whom he addresses, but for them also which shall believe on him. This assurance has sent a thrill of |