l meet there; bounding hearts will meet there; and on the banks of
the river of life they will walk hand in hand, as they did unitedly in this
vale of tears. "There is hereafter to be no separation in that family. No
one is to lie down on a bed of pain. No one to wander away into temptation.
No one to sink into the arms of death. Never in heaven is that family to
move along the slow procession, clad in the habiliments of woe, to consign
one of its members to the tomb!"--REV. A. BARNES.

If heaven is our better home, where the members of Christian families meet
to part no more; if dreams cannot picture a world so fair; and if eye has
not seen, nor ear heard, nor human heart conceived, the felicity of its
peaceful inhabitants, then we should greatly rejoice that our pious kindred
have been taken there, and that we are blessed with the hope of reunion
with them in that heavenly home:--

... "If to Christ, with faith sincere,
Your babe at death was given,
The kindred tie that bound you here,
Though rent apart with many a tear,
Shall be renewed in heaven!"

In our tent-home, we should cultivate spiritual longings after heaven, and
live in the true hope and assurance of entering there. The soul of the
Christian, conscious of the emptiness of all things here, rests and
expatiates in a life to come. In proportion to his preparation for it, and
his nearness to it, will be the depth of his aspirations and the assurance
of his hope. The widowed mother, who feels that part of her household is in
heaven and that soon she will join them there, yearns with all the pining
of home-sickness, for departure to the promised land, which is far better.

"When shall my labors have an end,
In joy and peace and thee!"

Even these hopes and longings after reunion with the departed in heaven,
afford her joy, and open in her panting spirit a foretaste of unearthly
bliss. To her aspiring faith all things look heavenward. The stars of the
sky, and the flowers of the field smile their blessings upon her; and she
welcomes death to break off her chains, to draw the bolts and bars, and
open the prison doors of her house of clay, that her home-sick spirit may
go up to that happier land where her possessions lie:--

"Let me go! my heart is fainting
'Neath its weight of sin and fears,
And my wakeful eyes are failing
With these ever-falling tears!
For the morning I am sighing,
While I earth's long vigils keep;