t sky; you cannot arouse a deaf man to
enthusiasm about sweet music; and you cannot prove to an utterly
selfish, earthly man that self-sacrifice and purity and heroism and
love are the loveliest and the most desirable possessions--the sources
of the highest and most lasting joy. But I feel sure that most of us,
with all our faults, have in our better moments the desire and the
admiration--aye, and the effort, too, after nobleness of life, and
therefore we can understand this highest joy of Heaven. We have had
experience sometimes, however rarely, of lovely deeds, and the sweet,
pure joy that follows in their train. Well, whenever you have
conquered some craving temptation or borne trouble for another's sake;
when you have helped and brightened some poor life, and kept quiet in
the shade that no one should know of it; when you have tried to do the
right at heavy cost to yourself; when the old father or mother at home
has thanked God for the comfort you have been in their declining years;
whenever in the midst of all your sins you have done anything for the
love of God or man, do you not know what a sweet, pure happiness has
welled up in your heart, entirely different in kind, infinitely higher
in degree than any pleasure that ever came to you from riches or
amusement or the applause of men. Of this kind surely must be the pure
joy of Heaven. Call up the recollection of some of those cherished
moments of your life, and multiply by infinity the pleasure that you
felt, and you will have some faint notion of what is meant by Heaven,
the Heaven that God designs for man.

II. WHAT IS HEAVEN'S SUPREME JOY?

Thus, then, we answer the first of our questions--What is meant by
Heaven? Heaven means a state of character rather than a place of
residence. Heaven means to be something rather than to go somewhere.
But though Heaven means a state of character rather than a place of
residence, yet it means a place of residence, too. And though Heaven
means to be something rather than to go somewhere, yet it means to go
somewhere, too. And from this the second question easily follows.
What can be known about that life in Heaven?

"Oh, for a nearer insight into Heaven,
More knowledge of the glory and the joy,
Which there unto the happy souls is given,
Their intercourse, their worship, their employ."

We do not know a great deal about it.

The Bible is given to help us to live rightly in this world, not to
s