nce weeping Magdalene, and the once sore-stricken
Lazarus, and the infant who has but the hour before left the bosom
of its weeping mother! HOW glorious, again, is the thought that the
poorest saint here--the most ignorant, the most despised, the most
solitary and unknown--shall not only admire and love, but be himself
the object of admiration and of love on the part of the highest spirit
there. For the King who is not ashamed to call the poorest "brethren,"
will, in His adornments of their mind and heart, as well as of outward
form, bestowed "according to His riches," make them in all things like
Himself, and fit to move in regal grandeur with all saints and angels
in the royal palace of his God. "Fear not, little flock; it is your
Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."

After what has been said, it is unnecessary to prove what I have
assumed as so evidently true; I mean the future recognition of our
Christian friends. It is almost as unreasonable to ask for proofs of
this as for the probable recognition of friends in a different part
of the country after having been separated from one another during a
brief interval of time. What! shall memory be obliterated, and shall
we forget our own past histories, and therefore lose the sense of our
personal identity, and be ignorant of all we have been and done as
sinners, and of all we have received and done as redeemed men? or,
knowing all this, shall we be prevented from communicating our
histories to others? Shall beloved friends be there whom we have known
and loved in Christ here; with whom we have held holy communion; with
whom we have laboured and prayed for the advancement of Christ's
kingdom; and with whom we have eagerly watched for His second
coming,--and shall we be unable throughout eternity, either to
discover their existence or associate with them in the New Jerusalem?
Are the apostles now ignorant of each other? Did Moses and Elias
issue out of a darkness which mutually concealed them in heaven, and
recognising one another for the first time amidst the light on Tabor's
hill, did they then return into darkness again? Oh, what is there in
the whole Word of God,--what argument derived from, our experience of
the blessings of Christian fellowship,--what in the character of God
or His dealings with man,--what in His promises of things to come laid
up for those who love Him, that could have suggested such strange,
unworthy, false, and dreary thoughts of the