No, no; without this heaven of reünion, we could not be satisfied. We shall there "love to live, and live to love;" shall love the dear ones who were our special kindred while in this transient life; shall love, too, with a righteous and commendable love, myriads of other beings, who with us in common enjoy the smiles of a Father's beneficence. Heaven, then, is social. All our conceptions of it correspond with this idea. Associated enjoyment shall be one of the most profound delights it can confer.

3. We read proofs of this doctrine of reünion, in the Scriptures. What but this is meant in that prayer of Jesus, that they whom he here knew and loved as friends, might be with him in the heavenly state? What but this is signified in the language of the apostle, "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, them also which sleep in (or through) Jesus, will God bring with him.-Comfort one another with these words. - When Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with him in glory!"* What but this means the writer to the Hebrews, when he speaks of "the general assembly of the church of the first-born, which are written in heaven?"† and the Revelator, when he hears "in heaven as it were, the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, and the voice of harpers harping with their harps?" and some of the words of the celestial chorus, "Now unto him that washed us in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God, be glory and honor forever?" These, and other passages of the same import, abundantly corroborate the other considerations already

*1 Thess. iv. 14, 18. Col. iii. 4. † Heb. xii. 23. ↑ Rev. xiv. 2.

before us in evidence of our knowledge and enjoyment of one another in the life to come.

Comfort and consolation are given us in these views. We have treasures of the soul in that glorious life. Yes, we have interest in the dead, as really as we have it in the living. No eternal separation of sympathetic souls, under the government of the Eternal! We live not unto ourselves, but for others, now and evermore. God grant us spiritual insight to comprehend more and more of this marvellous truth!

DEATH OF THE SINFUL.

THERE is a glowing passage somewhere in the writings of Miss Bremer, which reads: :- "But the sinful- those degraded to a brutal condition the villains who live and die in darkness, in the night of misery and ignorance! Friendly stars which shine so brightly, - mysterious lamps of heaven, - I look up to you full of hope! You are worlds for hope-higher places of education for the unfortunate children of earth! I imagine myself in ye! Oh! yes, I can surely hope!"

Is there hope for the sinful who die unrepentant, or without having given evidence of their pardon and peace? Does this question surprise any reader? It is equally surprising to the writer that a Christian theology should make it necessary for us to ask it. For doubts and misgivings envelop it to many minds. It seems to such minds impossible for the divine mercy to reach the sinful in the life to come; as though his power and grace could not as surely and

effectually reach them in one stage of their existence as in another.

Let us refer to a striking instance, wherein our question may in some good degree be answered. There is the record, in the Second Book of Samuel, of the death of Amnon, the son of David. He was beloved of his father, as the first-born, and as a son of much talent and promise. But his heart had become diseased he was one of the most reckless and revolting of transgressors, and inflicted one of the most flagrant outrages on his father's house that mortal depravity is capable of effecting. He was slain, in the midst of his sins, by the hand of his own brother, Absalom. The tidings of his untimely death reached his father David. We may imagine the grief of his soul, a parent's grief for a child of its affections, though that child was numbered among the grievous transgressors of divine and human law. Never was son more sincerely mourned by a parent, although that parent knew, as truly as any other mortal might have known, of the greatness of his iniquity.

But, deep as his guilt has been, and condemnatory in the sight of heaven and earth, is there no hope for his recovery from its depths, now that he has passed away from these earthly life scenes, - these strivings and defeats and victories of the human soul, as it answers to the temptations which meet it on every hand? We have the answer in the record of truth. "He was comforted concerning Amnon, seeing he was dead.”

And if he was thus comforted, he had reasons for such assurance. He was one of the prophets of the living God; and though to him there had not come all that brightness of the revelation of Immortality which in subsequent days of the ministry of Jesus

burst upon the world, he had not that view of the future which would lead him to despair of the redemption of the sinful from the power of sin. He had hope for this profligate offspring, this first-born of his paternal affection, this son of his trial and affliction, yet of his undying love. He had hope in that God whose praise he so often sung in his devotional strains; that God who "is good unto all, whose tender mercies are over all his works," and whose " mercy endureth forever." He had contemplated the vast government of the King of kings and Lord of lords; he knew that it had all resources to secure the best good of his children; that they could not go out of his paternal presence, whether they ascended to heaven, made their bed in the grave, or took the wings of the morning to fly to the ends of the earth. And in this sustaining and satisfying conviction, he “ was comforted concerning Amnon, seeing he was dead.”

This was not only in accordance with the instruction of God's truth to him, but most salutary and supporting of all things to a parent's heart. For to whom can paternal anxiety look, under such bereavement, but to the great Source of all wisdom and mercy and love? All parents will rest their petitions and hopes there, when death comes and takes from them the bright and fair in virtue's way, or the straying and unfaithful, who have left her blessed paths for the service of sin. Paternal love cannot think of them as cast off from the Lord forever.

And when we mourn the death of the sinful, those who have passed away from us without having given signs of true repentance, of reformation, -we are not only encouraged to hope that God, in his great mercy, may find some way of escape for them from the evils of the tempter and the misery of the sinful

beyond the grave; we believe, joyfully believe, what others tremblingly pray for,that God's ever

lasting love will be around them in and beyond the valley of the shadow of death. "For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again: neither doth God respect any person; yet doth he devise means that his banished be not expelled from him. Neither death nor life shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Thus can we hope for the dead, whatever may have been their character; for all the banished in the present or future existence, and know that God in his infinite wisdom has devised plans for their redemption from sin, and their instruction in righteousness.

For, surely, that God who is rich in mercy and goodness in the present state of being, will not be less so in that which is to come. No change can come to him. This present reign of darkness, unbelief, sorrow and sin, are under his holy direction. What more can we ask? what that is better conceive? Our God and Father reigns. His children will not be out of the reach of his almighty arm. His sinful sons shall be scourged, chastised, adequately corrected and restored. Though they live and die with moral defilement upon them and in them, what is it but their redemption from evil that makes the plan of his grace in Christ Jesus so glorious? Why are our conceptions of this redemption power so faint? Why do we suffer ourselves to be so blinded by practical unbelief, as not to realize that God's ways are all to eventuate in good to his children? And who does not need this good, this redemption which is in Christ Jesus, redemption for those now most or

* 2 Samuel xiv. 14. Rom. viii. 38, 39.