September 22

"A little while and you shall not see me: and again, a little while, and you shall see me, because I go to the Father." John 7 and John 14

THE sacred friendships we form in our present state enter deeply into our future happiness. A bosom friend—and we now speak only of the sympathy which a mutual hope in Christ inspires—we feel to be a part of our own existence, an essential element of our intellectual and moral being. Such a friend is identified with our immortality. The affection inspired, the communion maintained, the communion enjoyed here, surely form but the embryo, the germ, of that friendship which, in its fullness and perfection, awaits us on high. The very character of earth's sacred friendships points us to a fuller development. Is the communion, the communion, the reciprocation of feeling springing from a warm confidential and exclusive friendship, at all commensurate with the depth and intensity of the affection that inspires it? Alas! not so. How little and how imperfect here the communion of kindred hearts! Places, oceans, circumstances separate, and it is but now and then that we sip the sweets of a full and unalloyed communion. And then, how frequently does death step in, and cast its shadow and its blight over the heart's fondest treasure! the thread is broken, and our bosom friend is gone! "A little while, and you shall not see me," gently whispers each holy, precious friendship of the heart. It is but "a little while" we enjoy the friends God gives us, and then, disappearing within the veil of eternity, we see them no more. But are they lost? Oh no! Another voice is heard—it is as a voice from heaven speaking—"And again a little while, and you shall see me, because I go to the Father." Yes! it is but a "little while," and we shall see them again; because they are safe in the house and reposing in the bosom of their Father.

And what is heaven? It is not a place of solitude and loneliness. There is society there—there is companionship there. And the life of the blessed will be a life of the closest personal communion and of the highest social enjoyment. And what beings in the Father's house will be more likely to participate with us, and, by participation, heighten, the joys of heaven? Surely those who, in this lower world, were more closely than all others endeared and assimilated to us, by affection, providence, communion, and time. And when we have passed through the portal of death, and find ourselves in glory, who, amid the bright throng of redeemed spirits, will be the first objects of our eager search? Will it not be those who on earth we knew and loved better than others, and whose associations were so interwoven with our earthly and former life, that not to renew the same peculiar friendship, freed from all the imperfections of sin, and not to enjoy again the same hallowed communion, would be like the destruction of our consciousness and memory? Yes! a little while, and we shall see them again! Oh blessed reunion and of the holy dead! Beloved, in a little while we shall see them all again, because they are with the Father. Let us comfort one another with these words.