erished anticipations shall be far
exceeded in that rapturous moment; for we can but reason from
experience, whilst here the sweetest communion has ever been marred by
that which there shall not be.

How sweet the prospect, my sorrowing bereaved readers! We shall, as
God is true, look once more into the very faces of those we have known
and loved in the Lord on earth. They awake to recognition as Magdalene
at the word "Mary;" not to a renewed earthly companionship, nor to a
relationship as known in the flesh, as poor Mary thought, but to a
sweeter, as well as higher; a warmer, as well as purer communion; for
the tie that there shall bind us together is that which is stronger,
sweeter than all others, even here,--Jesus Christ the Lord.

But stay! Does this really meet fully the present sorrow? Does it
give a satisfying comfort? Is there not a lurking feeling of
disappointment that certain relationships with their affections are
never to be restored; therefore, in certain ways, "recognition" is not
probable? For instance, a husband loses the companion of his life. He
shall, it is true, meet and recognize with joy a saint whom he knew on
earth, but never again his _wife_. That sweet, pure, human affection,
is never to be renewed. Death's rude hand has chilled that warmth
forever. The shock of death has extinguished it forevermore. Is that
exactly true? Is that just as Scripture puts it? Let us see.

We may justly reason that if, in the resurrection, relationships were
exactly as here, sorrow would necessarily outweigh joy. To find broken
families there would be a perpetuation of earth's keenest distresses.
To know that that break was irreparable would cause a grief unutterable
and altogether inconsistent with the joy of the new creation. Marriage
there is not, and hence all relationships of earth we may safely gather
are not there. But the natural affections of the soul of man have they
absolutely come to nothing?

That soul, connected as it is with that which is higher than
itself--the spirit--is immortal, and its powers and attributes must be
in activity beyond death. It is the seat of the affections here, and,
surely, there too. Why, then, shall not these affections there have
full unhindered play? Let us seek to gather something from analogy.
Knowledge has its seat in the spirit of man, and here he exercises that
faculty; nor does the spirit any more than the soul cease to exist; nor
are its attr