At our best estate we are only pilgrims and strangers here. "Heaven is
our home." Death will never knock at the door of that mansion, and in
all that country there is not a single grave. How glad parents are in
holiday times to gather their children home again! But I have noticed
that there is almost always a son or a daughter absent--absent from
home, perhaps absent from the country, perhaps absent from the world.
Oh, how glad our Heavenly Father will be when He gets all His children
home with Him in heaven! And how delightful it will be for brothers
and sisters to meet after long separation! Once they parted at the
door of the tomb; now they meet at the door of immortality. Once they
saw only through a glass darkly; now it is face to face; corruption,
incorruption; mortality, immortality. Where are now all their sins and
sorrows and troubles? Overwhelmed in the Red Sea of Death while they
passed through dry shod.
Gates of pearl, capstones of amethyst, thrones of dominion, do not
stir my soul so much as the thought of home. Once there let earthly
sorrows howl like storms and roll like seas. Home! Let thrones rot and
empires wither! Home! Let the world die in earthquake struggle, and be
buried amid procession of planets and dirge of spheres. Home! Let
everlasting ages roll with irresistible sweep. Home! No sorrow, no
crying, no tears, no death. But home, sweet home, home, beautiful
home, everlasting home, home with each other, home with God.