+I. Our virtuous friends at death go to Jesus Christ.+--Here is one
great fact in regard to futurity. The good on leaving us here meet
their Saviour, and this view alone assures us of their unutterable
happiness. The joys of centuries will be crowded into that meeting.
This is not fiction. It is truth founded on the essential laws of the
mind. Their intercourse with Jesus Christ will be of the most
affectionate and ennobling character. They are brought to a new
comprehension of His mind and to a new reception of His Spirit. They
will become joint workers--active, efficient ministers--in
accomplishing His great work of spreading virtue and happiness. They
retain the deepest interest in this world. They love human nature as
never before, and human friends are prized as above all price.
+II. Our virtuous friends go not to Jesus only, but to the great and
blessed society which is gathered round Him.+--The redeemed from all
regions of earth. They meet peculiar congratulations from friends who
had gone before them to that better world, and especially from all
who had in any way given aids to their virtue. If we have ever known
the enjoyments of friendship, of entire confidence, of co-operation
in honourable and successful labours with those we love, we can
comprehend something of the felicity of a world where souls, refined
from selfishness, open as the day, thirsting for new truth and
virtue, endowed with new power of enjoying the beauty and grandeur of
the universe, allied in the noblest works of benevolence, and
continually discovering new mysteries of the Creator's power and
goodness, communicate themselves to one another with the freedom of
perfect love. They enter on a state of action, life, and effort.
Still more, they go to God. They see Him with a new light in all His
works. They see Him face to face, by immediate communion. These new
relations of the ascended spirit to the universal Father, how near,
how tender, how strong, how exalting! Heaven is a glorious reality.
Its attraction should be felt perpetually. They who are safely
gathered there say to us, "Come and join us in our everlasting
blessedness!"--_Channing._