rice, the Apostle answered, "but I was free
born." Every Christian has the right to call himself a citizen of
Heaven, and to declare that he is free born. When in Holy Baptism we
were born again of water, and of the Holy Ghost, the freedom of the
City was given to us, and we were made a peculiar people, citizens of
the Heavenly Jerusalem, with all the privileges, and all the
responsibilities, belonging to such a position. Get this glorious fact
into your minds, brethren, not that you are _going_ to belong to
Heaven, but that you _do_ belong to it now. Here in earth you are
foreigners, strangers and pilgrims. Here God's Israel is in exile by
the waters of Babylon, Jerusalem on high, the Heavenly Sion, is yonder,
and that is home. Heaven is yours now, if you forfeit it, if you lose
your inheritance, it will be from your own fault, your own sin.

First, I think that the fact of Heaven being our home should make us
_love_ it. Sometimes we find people who have willingly settled in a
foreign country, and done their best to forget the manners and language
of their native land. But such cases are very rare. If you meet with
an Englishman out in the Colonies, he always speaks of the old country
as home. Even colonists who have been born in our foreign settlements,
and have never seen England, speak of _going home_ when they visit it.
In many an Australian hut, or New Zealand farm, there is a swelling of
the heart, or a glistening in the eyes, as the faded flowers drop from
the home letter. The flowers are poor enough, and dead enough, but
they once grew in a home garden, or blossomed in an English meadow.
One of our great novelists tells us how two men in Australia walked
many weary miles only to listen to the song of the skylark. That
homely bird was precious in their eyes because it reminded them of
home. I have read that when Swiss soldiers are abroad, they are not
allowed to play, or listen to, their national airs. The music reminds
them of their cow-bells ringing among the fair valleys and mountains of
their native land, and under its influence some have deserted the army,
and some even died of grief. The German loves to talk of the
_Fatherland_, and has a word in his language which very strongly
expresses home-sickness. Talk to a Scotsman about the beauties of
Venice, or Rome, and he will tell you that you should see Edinburgh, or
Aberdeen. Speak to an Irishman of the wonders of the tropics, and he
will at