dwelling
places in His Father's house. He is going thither. He will ascend
into that congeries of inhabited worlds and will prepare a place for
them, a glorious palace home befitting their high estate; when all
is ready He will come back and receive them in corporate unity to
Himself.

His words are simple, but the simplicity is the simplicity of light
and every accent is as the touch of peace to troubled hearts; for
this is what He said:

"In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would
have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and
receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also."

In the book of Acts, in the first chapter you have a scene no artist
has really ever painted, no writer ever fairly portrayed and no
mortal tongue can fittingly describe.

Our Lord is going up from the Mount of Olives. He is going up from
the midst of His disciples. He is going heavenward. The disciples
watch Him as He ascends. He enters a cloud. Do not, I beseech you,
imagine for a moment this cloud is a fog bank, a mass of watery mist
and vapour; it is the shekinal cloud which once covered the
tabernacle in the wilderness and was the vehicle of His presence
when Israel in that far time marched on their way to the promised
land. It is His chariot of state. In this chariot sent to meet Him
He passes between the onlooking worlds ever higher and higher till
at last He takes His seat upon the throne of the Highest at the
right hand of the invisible majesty.

Then, as through the dimness of their tears the disciples watch Him
disappear, they hear a voice which says to them:

"Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same
Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like
manner as ye have seen him go into heaven."

"This same Jesus."

Mark that well!

The Jesus who on the Sunday night of His resurrection did meet these
disciples in the upper room and said to them as they shrank back
into a frozen silence of hope and fear:

"Peace be unto you."

"Why are ye troubled?"

"And why do thoughts arise in your hearts?"

"Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me and
see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have."

Still these disciples were afraid, afraid it could not be true.

Then He showed them His hands and His feet that they might see where
the nails had g