were only men, rising, through many struggles and fallings-back, out of ignorance into knowledge, out of darkness into light. But as they knew Him better and loved Him more, so they knew better what the heaven was He often spoke of, and what they should be when all the hindrances and temptations of the world were taken away. As they learned what was the treasure which God offered to every one of them, so they learned to hope for that treasure thereafter, and to lay it up for themselves while on earth by following after the divine likeness. Christ did appeal to men's self-interest, but not till He had taught them that their interest was to be perfect, as their Father in heaven is perfect.

And this view of the world to come is not a view invented by us to suit a theology of later date, and extracted from Christ's words to fit our theory. Those who themselves heard Him, or received His words from those who did, carried away the same belief. To St. Paul as to St. John the very essence of heaven was the companionship and example of Christ. "And then," says the former, after describing to his Thessalonian hearers the second coming of Christ, "so shall we be ever with the Lord :

and he adds, as if he had now said what was the crowning satisfaction of their needs, "Comfort one another with these words." St. John in our text says the same: "We know not what we shall be; but when we see Him, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." Likeness to Christ, the perfect crown of men's hopes-here is surely answer to the ready objection that the Gospel finds men selfish only to leave them so. To lose self in Christ, not to find it haunting us still, is the heaven which God has promised to His redeemed.

The revelation in the Gospels of a future state offers therefore no justification for the charge that Christianity appeals to men's prudence, rather than to their appreciation of right. On the contrary, nothing is more remarkable, if we contrast the teaching of Christ with that of the founders of other religions, than the reticence He observed with regard to the nature of that heaven which He nevertheless held constantly before men's eyes. The disciples must have longed to know something definite about their Father's house, but to their strained eyes Christ vouchsafed little relief. He bade them to take upon them His yoke, and trust to Him. The Apostles carry on the same message. "Eye

hath not seen, nor ear heard, what God has prepared," says St. Paul. "We know not yet what we shall be," says St. John. We do not need to know what heaven will be, if only we know what God is, and what He would have us to be, here on earth. But while I claim for the Gospel this quality of appealing to men's higher nature, not their lower, I admit that men, professing to draw their confidence from the Bible, often declare and believe in a heaven of their own inventing. But it is not just to attribute to the fountain-head of the stream the pollutions which men have introduced. It is not just to represent as Christianity the caricatures of it which prejudice and party zeal may have devised. Unless we accept God's revelation of Himself, we shall inevitably make a God for ourselves, and invest Him with our own vices and weaknesses, making Him to judge as we should judge, to act as we should act. In the same way, if we are not satisfied with the hope which St. John associates with our eternal hereafter, we shall assuredly invent a heaven of our own, and make it a home for lower pleasures. We smile the smile of pity when we think of the dreams of men in times long past-of the Elysian fields, of the Scandinavian hall of war

riors, of the sensual paradise of Mahomet. But is the heaven of many men who call themselves Christians any worthier? Are not the views of many of us, if less material, quite as unchristian? Are we not all, my brethren, apt too often to think of the life after death as a relief from responsibility and trouble, perhaps as a deliverance for ever from vulgar or uncongenial people? But this hope cannot fulfil the purpose which St. John assigns to it. Such a hope as this can never lead men to purify themselves even as He is pure.

"But," some one may say, "as so little is told us of a world to come, and as we are not to be good here for any hope of reward, let us dismiss the subject from our thoughts, and rather think of that present time which God has put into our own hands." This has a show of wisdom and earnestness, but St. John seems to think we should lose something by giving up our thought of a hereafter. He seems to teach, at least, that hope is necessary for our life. "He who has this hope in him purifieth himself even as He is pure." And, my brethren, our own lives confirm the truth of these words. We cannot put away from us the thought of that undiscovered country, to which such countless bands

of travellers have gone before, and where our fathers and mothers, brothers or children, are awaiting us. We cannot, save by destroying our moral nature, lose the conviction that we shall live again. If the future is not a hope, it will be a fear. If we resolve to forego the hope, we shall still be haunted by the fear that in that sleep of death there will come dreams, and that these dreams may be of darkness rather than of light. The love of God and of His righteousness is the key to the appreciation of heaven. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived it, because it is spiritually discerned. We may speculate fancifully on its nature; we may cultivate curiosity till we bring ourselves, when on the brink of death, to say with the famous Frenchman, "Now for the great secret;" but we have not been raised by such speculations any nearer to the height to which God is ever calling us. For He is calling to us to hope, and to hope for Him.

Put then side by side-on the one hand the varied speculations of men on the life to come, on the other this one declaration of St. John, "We know that we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is "-and let us thank God that this glorious assurance, seeming to say so