all rejoice in that work as _perfect_;
and every redeemed soul will be as a mirror in whose transparent
depths the Divine glory is seen reflected. Oh comforting and exalting
thought! that the weakest and most imperfect, yet true child of God,
who possessed any real faith or real love, is thus at last "glorified
together with Christ"--their confessions of sin for ever over; their
sense of their own emptiness lost in a sense of Christ's fulness;
their ardent longings for unsullied holiness gratified as no faith or
foretaste here realised, even feebly, in their hours of most pious
fervour! Should it not delight us to think of even one whom we have
known and loved really possessing such joy as this; and ought we not
to give united thanks to God for their happiness with God, even while
we sorrow for their loss to ourselves during our earthly pilgrimage?

IV.

OUR SOCIAL LIFE.

Man is a _social_ as well as a sentient, intellectual, and moral
being; and as such he will have joy in the presence of God in heaven.
We are made for brotherhood. It was in reference to this original
craving of the heart for society that God said of man when he came
perfect from His hands, "It is not good for him to be alone." The fact
of solitariness is, indeed, unknown in God's intelligent and moral
universe. With reverence, I remark, that God has existed as Father,
Son, and Spirit, three Persons in the unity of the Godhead. We cannot,
indeed, conceive of God, whose name is love, existing from eternity
without a person like Himself as an object of His love. Certain it
is, however, that for the creature to have joy in himself alone, is
impossible. Isolation would, in time, produce insanity. The heart will
lavish its affection upon the lowest forms of animal creation, or
upon ideal beings, rather than feed upon itself. But there can be
no solitude to him who knows there is a God, nor who possesses any
religion; for religion is love to God. And even where the society of
men is shunned, and solitude fled to by the weary, this is often,
after all, but an unconscious protest in favour of brotherhood; the
bitterness of one who, having sought it from men in vain, feels as if
robbed of his brother's affections, which he had a right to possess as
a portion of his inheritance.

But while God has planted in every breast this passion for congenial
society, and has supplied to so great an extent its want by the family
institution into which we are born i