BEYOND THE STARS 
 
LONDON C 
 
 PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB 
 FOR 
 
 T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH, 
 
 SIMPKIN. MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, AND CO. LIMITED 
 NEW YORK : CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS. 
 
 TORONTO : THE WILLARD TRACT DEPOSITORY. 
 
 » 
 
BEYOND THE STABS: 
 
 OB, 
 
 HEAVEN, 
 
 ITS INHABITANTS, OCCUPATIONS, AND LIFE. 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS HAMILTON, D.D., LL.D., 
 
 PRESIDENT OF QUEEN’S COLLEGE, BELFAST *, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 EDINBURGH: 
 
 T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET. 
 
 1896. 
 
\A \°\ 
 
 IN 
 
 ALICI/E 
 
 CARISSIM/E 
 
 MEMORIAM 
 
 DULCEM. 
 
 * 
 
 1 
 
 JL 
 
 H . 
 
 A r 
 
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 5 
 

PREFACE. 
 
 - 0 - 
 
 ^\NE or two matters about this work it seems 
 ^ necessary that I should explain to those who 
 may honour it with a perusal. 
 
 First, let me disarm the critics beforehand by 
 saying that it is a book for the people, and not 
 a disquisition for the learned. Its object is to tell 
 in plain, popular language all that can be gathered 
 from the Bible regarding the glad but mysterious 
 world which lies “beyond the stars.” If any who 
 cast their eyes over its pages are disappointed in it 
 for this reason, I cannot help it. There are other 
 works which will supply them with what they are in 
 search of. For me, so far as this book is concerned, 
 “ I had rather speak five words with my understand¬ 
 ing, that by my voice I might teach others also, than 
 ten thousand words in an unknown tongue; ” and 
 the tongue of the theologian, who must perforce deal 
 with strange languages and work out abstruse 
 arguments, must be an unknown tongue to the plain 
 English reader. I am quite content to walk among 
 “ the common people,” and will have my sufficient 
 reward if they “ hear me gladly ” on my theme. 
 
 7 
 
8 
 
 Preface. 
 
 It seems needful also that I should say that the 
 successive chapters of the book were originally de¬ 
 livered as a series of Sunday-evening lectures. This 
 will account for much in their style and contents 
 which might otherwise appear strange, and will also 
 explain the absence of many things. I have not 
 thought it wise to deprive the work of this its original 
 character to any great extent. It seemed to me that 
 the trouble of doing so would have been ill repaid, 
 and very probably might have ended in more hurt 
 than service both to the book and its readers. As a 
 matter of fact, it was the deep interest which my talks 
 with my people about “ the better land ” awakened, 
 when delivered from the pulpit, that suggested to me 
 the thought of their publication. When I saw how 
 men crowded to hear about the heavenly home, and 
 with what unflagging eagerness they drank in all that 
 they could be told about it, it seemed to me a pity 
 not to yield to the requests which came from many 
 quarters to commit what I had said on the subject to 
 the press, that others might share in whatever profit 
 or enjoyment my words might give. There is a great 
 hunger for information about the other world. Is it 
 not well if one can at all satisfy it and turn it to 
 good account ? Whatever God has seen right to tell 
 us about the celestial country, we ought surely to try 
 to know. 
 
 That I obtained light and help from many quarters, 
 while trying to find out what is “ beyond the stars,” 
 goes, of course, without saying. I sought such light 
 
Preface. 9 
 
 and help everywhere that I thought I could find 
 them, and am under many an obligation in conse¬ 
 quence. In the text such obligations will be found 
 acknowledged from time to time. I' feel, however, 
 that I ought specially to mention here two works 
 which deal with portions of the subject which I have 
 essayed to treat in this volume —Our Friends in 
 Heaven , and Our Companions in Glory , by the late 
 Rev. James M. Killen, D.D., Comber. 
 
 These are all the matters which I have to explain 
 to my readers before asking them to enter with me 
 upon the investigation of the subject of my book. 
 My hope is that it may bring ‘‘the land that is 
 very far off” a little nearer, help them to see their 
 title to it a little more clearly, and comfort them 
 with some brighter glimpses than perhaps they have 
 got elsewhere, of the bliss in which any whom they 
 ' have lost may be “ beyond the stars.” 
 
 Brookvale House, Belfast, 
 
 October 1888 . 
 
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 - 0 - 
 
 TF additional proof were wanting of the deep and 
 widespread interest which is felt in the mystery 
 of the unseen world which awaits us at last, it is 
 afforded by the rapid sale of the first edition of this 
 work. In a few months after publication it was 
 out of print. A second is now sent forth, carefully 
 revised, and with some alterations introduced into 
 it, which, it is hoped, will be regarded by the reader 
 as improvements. Practically the book remains 
 unchanged. 
 
 Queen’s College, Belfast, 
 
 October 1889 . 
 
 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 
 
 - 0 - 
 
 TTET another edition of this work having been 
 called for, I have once more gone carefully 
 through it and have revised it where necessary. 
 None of the views which I originally advanced on the 
 subjects treated of, have, however, been altered. I 
 am as firmly persuaded of their correctness now as 
 when first I issued “ Beyond the Stars,” four years 
 ago. 
 
 Queen’s College, Belfast, 
 
 November 1892 . 
 
 10 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTOEY. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Interest and Importance of the Subject—Our Friends in 
 Heaven — Where are they, and what are they doing ? — Our 
 own Home — Reasons why we should study the Subject— 
 
 The authorized Guide-book, ....... 17-20 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A SETTLING OF LOCALITIES. 
 
 Is there such a Place as Heaven ?—Or is it only a State ? 
 
 —Meaning of this last Theory — Its Grounds—“The King¬ 
 dom of God is within you”—Dr. Chalmers’s Views — Reasons 
 for believing Heaven a Place — Where are the Souls of the 
 Departed ?—The fact that there will be material Bodies in 
 Heaven proves it to be a Place—Called a Place in Scripture 
 —Can we discover anything as to its Situation ? — Various 
 Opinions — That Heaven is in the Sky — What does this 
 mean? — That Heaven will be on this Earth — Objections to 
 this Theory — The Theory that Heaven lies all round about 
 us—Isaac Taylor’s Opinion — Is Heaven in one of the Stars? 
 
 —Eph. iv. 8-10 — Teaching of this passage—Jewish Ideas of 
 the Heavens — The Centre of the Universe — Researches of 
 
 Argelander, Otto Struve, Madler, Airy, etc., . . . 23-41 
 
 11 
 
12 
 
 Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 There is a God — Proofs — Anecdote of Napoleon I.—A 
 mental Conception of God—Knowledge of Him possible—And 
 necessary—God has no bodily Shape—Conclusion of the West¬ 
 minster Divines on the Subject—But we must not evaporate 
 the Godhead into a profound Nothing—He is not mere Force— 
 
 Nor simple Being — Nor Causality — Nor the Order of the 
 Universe—Answer of Simonides—What is God ?—Definition of 
 the Shorter Catechism—The Trinity—The Beatific Vision—Is 
 God essentially Invisible?—He has been seen—Yet “no man 
 hath seen or can see ” Him—Explanation, . . . 45-62 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE CHERUBIM. 
 
 Various Ranks of Heavenly Intelligences—“Thrones, 
 Dominions, Principalities, and Powers ”—Law of Subordination 
 everywhere—The Cherubim—Popular Idea of them—Ezekiel’s 
 Descriptions—Explanation of them—Biblical History of the 
 Cherubim — At Eden — In the Tabernacle—In the Temple— 
 
 God commanding the making of Graven Images—Meaning of 
 the Second Commandment—John’s Description of the Cherubim 
 —Sum of the Scripture Teaching — Various Theories of the 
 Cherubim examined — Are they Symbols of God?—Are they 
 ordinary Angels ?—Are they Representatives of the Redeemed ? 
 
 —What the Bible really teaches—The Seraphim—Who and what 
 are they ?—The Teraphim,.65-89 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE ANGELS. 
 
 When created—They cannot die—Are they Incorporeal?— 
 Conclusion of the Council of Nice—Always young—Their Dress— 
 Their Sex—Have they Wings ?—Holy—Yet fallible—Satan once 
 a holy Angel—When was the Fall in Heaven ?—Angels not to 
 be worshipped—Gradations of Rank among them—Archangels— 
 Number of the Angels — Their Might — Their Functions— 
 Guardian Angels—Edmund Spenser’s Lines—Specially present in 
 the House of Prayer—1 Cor. xi. 10—Dr. Hodge’s Explanation 
 of “Power on her head because of the Angels,” . . 93-109 
 
Contents. 
 
 1 o 
 1 o 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE SAINTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Their Numbers—Their Extraction—What Heaven is like— 
 Dress of the Saints—Their Occupation—Inadequacy of the 
 popular Notions on the Subject—Heaven a Place for Men and 
 Women—Earth a Preparation for Heaven—Intended to restore 
 Man to his original .State—Dr. Norman Macleod’s Views— 
 Friendship in Heaven—Study—Interest of the Saints in Earth 
 —The “Cloud of Witnesses”—Active Employment of the 
 Saints in doing God’s Will—Their constant Communion with 
 Christ,.113-138 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 CHILDREN IN HEAVEN. 
 
 Interest of the Subject—The Children of Believers—In the 
 Covenant—Peter’s Pentecostal Sermon—“And thy house”— 
 
 The Children of Unbelievers—Do they get to Heaven ?—“God 
 is Love ”—How He speaks of Children—Christ’s Treatment of 
 them — Deut. i. 35-30 —Hoav can Infants be saved when they 
 cannot exercise Faith ?—Are they saved apart from Christ ?— 
 Robert Robinson’s Epitaph—“Elect Infants”—Unbaptized 
 Infants—Views of the Church of Rome—Protestant Views— 
 
 Will Children be still Children in Heaven ? 141-163 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 DO THEY KNOW ONE ANOTHER IN HEAVEN ? 
 
 The Question stated—How the Poets put it—Inconceiva¬ 
 bility of Non-Recognition in Heaven—A Glentore Thaw— 
 
 The Doctrine believed semper ubique et cib omnibus —What 
 the Bible says — Nature of its Teaching on the Subject— 
 Greater Knowledge in Heaven than here—Richard Baxter’s 
 Opinion—Greater Love in Heaven—1 Cor. xiii.—Memory in 
 Heaven—Dives and Lazarus—“He was gathered to his people” 
 
 —Argument from the Words—“Hell from beneath is moved for 
 thee to meet thee at thy coming”—The Transfiguration— 
 “Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteous¬ 
 ness,” ..167-192 
 
14 
 
 Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 COMMON OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE OF RECOGNITION IN 
 
 HEAVEN. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 What is the Force of Objections?—Will our Bodies be so 
 changed at the Resurrection as to render Recognition impos¬ 
 sible ?—Christ’s Body—Nature of the Resurrection Body—1 Cor. 
 xv.—Dr. Candlish’s Views—“The Natural Body” and “the 
 Spiritual Body ”—Can pure Spirits recognise each other ?—The 
 case of the Woman who had had seven Husbands—Would the 
 Knowledge of lost Friends interfere with our Happiness in 
 Glory ?—Will we be solely occupied in Heaven with Christ ?— 
 Practical Effects of the Doctrine of Recognition in Heaven, 195-226 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 BETWEEN DEATH AND THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 Where will the Soul be between Death and the Resurrection ? 
 
 —Does it perish along with the Body ?—Arguments of Material¬ 
 ism—What says Christ ?—And Paul ?—The Doctrine of Soul-sleep 
 —Purgatory—What saitlx the Scripture?—“In Paradise”— 
 What is Paradise?—“Absent from the body, present with the 
 Lord”—Phil. i. 23—Dr. James Hamilton’s Statement—“He 
 descended into Hell” — Hades and Sheol—Calvin’s Views— 
 “The Spirits in Prison”—Where was Christ’s Soul during the 
 three Days between His Death and Resurrection ?—Is there any 
 “ larger hope ” ? ........ 229-255 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 HOW TO GET THERE. 
 
 Our Discussions incomplete without an Answer to this Ques¬ 
 tion—The Difficulty of the Case stated—Our Unworthiness— 
 
 And Unfitness for Heaven—Has God indicated any Way to 
 Heaven?—The Subject discussed—Conclusion, . . . 259-270 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 0 
 
 Introtmctorg, 
 
 15 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 A LL ages and all nations have tried to penetrate 
 behind the veil which hides the other world 
 from us. What a charm speculation and discussion 
 and vision about it had for the ancients, Egyptian 
 “ Book of the Dead 55 and Greek “ Mystery,” mystic 
 legend of Minos and Rhadamanthus, of Elysium and 
 Tartarus, of Acheron and Phlegethon, “ Odyssey ” of 
 Homer and “iEneid ” of Yirgil, “ Phaedon ” and 
 “ Republic ” and “ Gorgias ” of Plato, combine to tell us. 
 The hold of men’s minds which the “ Inferno ” gained 
 and kept, shows how, centuries later, the subject had 
 lost none of its fascination, while, in our own day, the 
 popularity of such widely different books as Miss 
 Phelps’s “ Gates Ajar,” and Archdeacon Farrar’s 
 “ Eternal Hope,” proves that the thirst for know¬ 
 ledge on the subject is still unslaked. This desire 
 to search into things unseen is not to be wondered 
 at. There is no one of us who is not concerned with 
 them. The youngest child has a stake in the 
 heavenly country as well as the oldest saint. 
 
 B 
 

 18 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 For, first of all, most of us have friends in heaven 
 —friends of whom we cannot help frequently think¬ 
 ing, picturing their condition and fancying how they 
 are employed. We cannot but have many a thought 
 about our fathers and mothers, our sisters and 
 brothers, and our children, who have gone before us 
 through the Valley of the Shadow. Wistfully and 
 wonderingly w T e must inquire about them in our 
 hearts. Those who have friends across the ocean in 
 Australia or America do not forget them; which of 
 us can forget the friends who are beyond the wider 
 ocean which separates the heavenly shore from this ? 
 So you say,— 
 
 “Yes, talk to me of heaven ; I love 
 To hear about the home above, 
 
 For there doth many a clear one dwell 
 In light and joy ineffable. 
 
 Oh, tell me how they shine and sing, 
 
 AVhile every harp rings echoing, 
 
 And every glad and tearless eye 
 Beams like the bright sun gloriously ! ” 
 
 There is another reason which makes us take a 
 deep interest in heaven—it is our home. A sweet 
 Christian poet has taught us to sing,— 
 
 “ I’m but a stranger here, 
 
 Heaven is my home ; 
 
 Earth is a desert drear, 
 
 Heaven is my home. 
 
 Danger and sorrow stand 
 Around me on every hand ; 
 
 Heaven is my fatherland, 
 
 Heaven is my home.” 
 
 
 
Introductory. 
 
 19 
 
 The words are true. We are not at home here. 
 We are “ strangers and pilgrims on the earth.” We 
 are journeying towards home. We “ nightly pitch 
 our moving tent a day’s march nearer home/’ and we 
 hope one day to settle down there for ever. Now, if 
 heaven is our home, how is it possible that we should 
 not take the utmost interest in knowing all about it 
 that we can know ? The emigrant who intends 
 going to a new world gathers all the information he 
 can obtain regarding it before he sails. How glad he 
 is to meet with people who have been there, and to 
 hear all they can tell him of it! How carefully he 
 inquires for the best guide-books, and how closely he 
 scans their pages! Now, we cannot converse with 
 any one who has been in the heavenly home. From 
 its bourne no travellers return, or, if any do, they 
 either tell nothing, or what they told is lost. Lazarus, 
 and the widow’s son of Nain, and Jairus’s daughter, 
 and Paul, and Elijah, and Moses all came back to 
 earth after longer or shorter sojourns there, and we 
 would give almost anything to hear the story of their 
 visits. But we cannot. If we may not, however, 
 talk with any who have visited the far country, we 
 have a guide-book to it, and we can study that. 
 What is the Bible but such a guide-book ? And if, 
 by conning our Murray or Baedeker, we prepare 
 ourselves in advance for the foreign land to which 
 we are going on business or pleasure, so as not to be 
 altogether strangers to it or its ways when we arrive, 
 we ought surely to make the same use of this other 
 
20 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 better volume, not only for the purpose of knowing 
 the way to the heavenly country, but of learning all 
 that may be learned regarding the land itself. It 
 is the authorized guide - book. It is “ issued by 
 authority,” and we may therefore be sure that all 
 its information is reliable. These pages will have 
 served their purpose if they point out what it really 
 tells us of this “ undiscovered country.” Their argu¬ 
 ments will be based upon it, as the only real and 
 infallible source of information on the subject. Their 
 appeal will be “ to the law and to the testimony; ” 
 and if they “ speak not according to this Word,” 
 there will be indeed “ no light ” in them. 
 
 This, then, is our object in this inquiry—to know 
 all we can of that wonderful land “ beyond the stars,” 
 of its inhabitants, its ways, its life. God speed us 
 in the task! 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 21 Settling ot Hocalittes. 
 
 21 
 
CHAPTEE II. 
 
 A SETTLING OF LOCALITIES. 
 
 mHE first question we propose trying to answer 
 is,—Is there such a place as heaven ? Ie there 
 a definite locality, a distinctly defined region, where 
 
 departed happy spirits dwell ? Or, is heaven, as 
 
 \ 
 
 some seem to teach, only a state, a condition of 
 blessedness, without reference to locality ? 
 
 It is not very easy to understand precisely what 
 is the meaning of this latter view. One would think 
 that if souls exist after death at all, one of the most 
 elementary truths regarding their state would be 
 that they must exist somewhere. The choice would 
 seem clearly to be between somewhere and nowhere, 
 and nowhere would appear to be synonymous with 
 non-existence. Still more, if our bodies are to live 
 again after the resurrection, it would seem a necessity 
 that they should live somewhere. But, however this 
 may be, there are certainly people who have some 
 such strange idea of heaven as that it is a state, as 
 distinguished from a place. In their view it savours 
 of materialism to connect it with either time or place. 
 Its happiness is to them an abstract, indefinite thing, 
 airy, unsubstantial, transcendental; a thing which 
 
 23 
 
24 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 defies either investigation or definition, and refuses 
 utterly to be tied down to any local habitation or 
 name. I do not know that I can really grasp their 
 idea. But if I can, it seems to me to involve some¬ 
 thing more than those who hold it intend. To my 
 thinking, it appears to do away with heaven altogether, 
 to dissolve it, not into the airy, unsubstantial, tran¬ 
 scendental thing which they speak of, but into an airy, 
 unsubstantial nothing,—a mirage, a dream. 
 
 But some one suggests, Is it not expressly said, 
 “ The kingdom of God is within you ” (Luke xvii. 21), 
 and does not this statement seem to run in the 
 direction of the position that heaven is some kind of 
 state ? As a matter of fact, the statement has no 
 bearing whatever on the subject. In the first place, 
 most modern interpreters now translate the words, 
 not “ The kingdom of God is within you; ” but 
 “ The kingdom of God is among you; ” i.e. it is 
 already begun—not coming, but come; not future, 
 but present. But, so far as we are concerned, it 
 does not matter in the least whether this or the 
 reading of the Authorized Version is adopted, for the 
 words have not the remotest reference to the point 
 which we are discussing. That point is,—Is heaven 
 a place or not ? and this passage does not bear upon 
 that point, for the simple reason that it does not 
 refer to heaven at all. No one with any under¬ 
 standing of Scripture would now think of saying 
 that it does. The Pharisees were not talking about 
 heaven when they put to our Lord the question which 
 
A Settling of Localities . 25 
 
 elicited from Him this pregnant remark. What they 
 wanted information about was, not heaven, but a 
 very different thing, the time of the establishment of 
 the Messianic kingdom. They were looking for such 
 a kingdom, and they wanted to find out from Christ 
 something as to the probable date of its commence¬ 
 ment. “ He was demanded of the Pharisees when 
 the kingdom of God should come” (Luke xvii. 20). 
 And His answer to their query dealt with the point 
 on which they asked light, and not with the point 
 with which we are here concerned. The passage 
 has no connection whatever with the question 
 whether heaven is a locality or not. Almost any 
 text in the Bible might be quoted in regard to this 
 question quite as appositely. 
 
 Yet it cannot be denied that there is still a good 
 deal of truth in what Dr. Chalmers thus wrote half 
 a century ago—•“ The common imagination that we 
 have of the paradise on the other side of death is 
 that of a lofty, aerial region, where the inmates float 
 in ether, or are mysteriously suspended upon nothing ; 
 where all the warm and sensible accompaniments 
 which give such an expression of strength and life 
 and colouring to our present habitation, are attenuated 
 into a sort of spiritual element that is meagre, and 
 imperceptible, and utterly uninviting to the eye of 
 mortals here below; where every vestige of mate¬ 
 rialism is done away, and nothing is left but certain 
 unearthly scenes that have no power of allurement, 
 and certain unearthly ecstasies with which it is felt 
 
26 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 to be impossible to sympathize.” The question is, 
 —Are such ideas true to fact, or are they not ? 
 We believe they are not, and we give the following 
 reasons for our belief :— 
 
 1. If souls exist at all after death, they must exist 
 somewhere. This truth cannot be too often repeated 
 or too clearly borne in mind. The soul is an entity. 
 It must have a dwelling-place. The fact that it is 
 invisible does not do away with the necessity for its 
 having an abode. It is neither omnipresent on the one 
 hand, nor non-present anywhere on the other. After 
 death as much as before death, it must exist somewhere. 
 
 2. Still more clearly, the fact that there will be 
 material bodies in heaven proves that it must be a 
 place. That there are such bodies there is certain. 
 Christ has a human body. That body must be in 
 some definite place, and can only be in one place at 
 one time. 1 Similarly, Enoch and Elijah, who were 
 translated without seeing death, have bodies, and 
 those bodies must be in some place. Moreover, at 
 the Great Day we shall all assume again the garments 
 of the body, laid off at death ; and those bodies will 
 be real bodies, and will demand a real place in which 
 to dwell. No doubt the resurrection body will be 
 different in certain respects from that which we 
 now possess. In what the differences will consist 
 we shall see at a subsequent part of these discussions. 
 
 1 For various opinions regarding the nature of our Lord’s risen 
 body, vide Westcott’s Gospel of the Resurrection , 239 ; Stier’s Words 
 of Christ, viii. 151 ; Bengel’s Gnomon, iv. 476. 
 
A Settling of Localities. 27 
 
 Here we merely state the fact that it will still be a 
 material body, which is all we require to know for 
 our present purpose. Being a material body, the resur¬ 
 rection body must have a material place in which to 
 dwell. This is surely clear beyond a peradventure. * 
 3. Again, heaven is expressly called a place in 
 Holy Scripture. “ I go,” Christ says, “ to prepare a 
 place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for 
 you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; 
 that where I am, there ye may be also ” (John xiv. 
 2, 3). Judas, when he died, went to “ his own 
 place ” below; so the saints at death wing their 
 flight to their own place above. There are multitudes 
 of passages to this effect. Our Lord speaks of 
 heaven constantly as a definite locality. “ Take 
 heed,” He says, “ that ye despise not one of these 
 little ones: for I say unto you, that in heaven ” 
 (surely a definite place is here indicated) “ their 
 angels do always behold the face of my Father which 
 is in heaven” (Matt, xviii. 10). To the dying 
 thief He said, ‘‘This day shalt thou be with me 
 in paradise ” (Luke xxiii. 43),—again surely mean¬ 
 ing a definite locality, as much as did Paul when 
 he told his readers at Corinth that he “ was caught 
 up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, 
 which it is not lawful for a man to utter” (2 Cor. 
 xii. 4). If words mean anything, there is only one 
 conclusion to be drawn from such statements as 
 these, and that conclusion is that somewhere in the 
 universe of God there is a place called heaven, a 
 
28 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 material place fitted for the occupation of material 
 bodies, a place as real as this earth on which we 
 now dwell. We may not be able to tell precisely 
 where this place is. Our telescopes, which search 
 so far into the starry depths, cannot discover it 
 to us, and all our reasoning may not be able to 
 indicate its exact locality. But as to the fact 
 that somewhere this bright spot does exist, the place 
 to which Jesus ascended on that memorable day 
 when He led the disciples out “ as far as to Bethany, 
 . . . and was parted from them, and carried up 
 into heaven” (Luke xxiv. 50, 51); the place to 
 which Enoch ascended when “ he was translated 
 that he should not see death, and was not found 
 because God had translated him ” (Heb. xi. 5); the 
 place to which Elijah was carried in his fiery 
 chariot right up from the banks of Jordan; and to 
 which our own departed friends winged their flight 
 when they fell asleep in Jesus,—we need entertain 
 no more doubt than we do of the existence of this 
 earth on which we now walk. Most certainly— 
 
 “There is a land of pure delight, 
 
 Where saints immortal reign ; 
 
 Infinite day excludes the night, 
 
 And pleasures banish pain. 
 
 Oh, could we make our doubts remove— 
 
 Those gloomy doubts that rise, 
 
 And see the Canaan that we love, 
 
 With unbeclouded eyes,— 
 
 Could we but climb where Moses stood, 
 
 And view the landscape o’er ; 
 
 Not Jordan’s stream, nor death’s cold flood 
 Should fright us from the shore ! ” 
 
29 
 
 A Settling of Localities. 
 
 Whatever else we may not be clear about, this we 
 need not doubt,—there is a heaven as surely as there 
 is an earth. 
 
 II. Let us now look at a second point. We have 
 seen that heaven is certainly a place. Let us see 
 if we can discover anything as to where this place 
 is. The fact that there is such a place will not, of 
 course, be affected by the result of such an inquiry. 
 Although entertaining no doubt of its existence, it is 
 quite possible that we may not be able to identify it. 
 Whether we can or not remains to be seen. 
 
 Our difficulties begin here. We have had no 
 difficulty in arriving at the certain conclusion that 
 there is a definite locality called heaven. But Holy 
 Writ nowhere tells us, in so many words, where this 
 place is situated. Yet we cannot help asking the 
 question. We echo the child’s words,— 
 
 “ I hear thee speak of the better land ; 
 
 Thou callest its children a happy band ; 
 
 Mother ! oh, where is that radiant shore ? 
 
 Shall we not seek it, and weep no more ? ” 
 
 Moreover, we not only ask the question—we 
 answer it, whether we are aware that we are doing so 
 or not. In our own minds we arrive at settled con¬ 
 clusions on the subject, consciously or unconsciously. 
 Probably there is not one of us who has not his own 
 ideas regarding it. Of the existence of these ideas 
 we are not perhaps aware until we begin to inquire 
 into them. But we have them. 
 
30 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 What are some of these ideas ? They vary much. 
 1. Many people have no further notion of the locality 
 of heaven than that it is somewhere in the sky. Put 
 the question to any company of ordinary people— 
 where is heaven ? and probably nine out of every ten 
 will point upward. It does not seem to occur to them 
 that, supposing they do this at twelve o’clock noon, 
 and again, in answer to the same question at twelve 
 o’clock midnight, repeat the action, they are really, 
 at an interval of only twelve hours, indicating two 
 exactly opposite localities. Yet such is of course the 
 fact. In those twelve hours the earth has wheeled 
 right round, so that the point which was above our 
 heads at noon is at midnight directly beneath our 
 feet. Heaven cannot plainly be in both directions. 
 So this answer to the question may at once be 
 dismissed. It is, in fact, no answer at all. 
 
 2. A reply which is at first sight more plausible is 
 given by those who think that this earth , cleansed 
 by the fires of the final conflagration, is to be the 
 heaven of the saints. They point us to such pas¬ 
 sages as 2 Pet. iii. 10:“ The day of the Lord will 
 come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens 
 shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements 
 shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also, and the 
 works that are therein, shall be burned up. . . . The 
 heavens being on fire shall he dissolved, and the 
 elements shall melt with fervent heat. Nevertheless 
 we, according to His promise, look for new heavens 
 and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.” 
 
A Settling of Localities. 31 
 
 In Eev. xxi. 1 we read again: “ I saw a new heaven 
 and a new earth : for the first heaven and the first 
 
 i 
 
 earth were passed away; and there was no more 
 sea.” The conclusion drawn from such passages is 
 that heaven will be this earth transformed. 
 
 On such Scriptures, and on the theory based upon 
 them, we remark,— 
 
 (a) The passages just quoted not only do not say 
 in so many words that the seat of heaven is to be 
 the renovated earth, but their language indicates the 
 contrary meaning. There are to be “ new heavens ” 
 as well as a “ new earth.” But there is no indica¬ 
 tion in the language, either of St. Peter or St. John, 
 of any such distinction being intended for this present 
 earth. Eather the contrary, whether we take the 
 language literally or figuratively. 
 
 (b) It is the uniform teaching of Scripture that 
 heaven, the heaven where Christ is and where His 
 people are to be, is in existence now. It is so 
 spoken of continually. Heaven was in existence at the 
 time of Christ’s birth, for angels came down out of it 
 to herald that grand event. It was in existence at 
 the time of His death, for He told the dying thief 
 that he would be with Him there that same day. 
 It was in existence at the time of His ascension, for 
 “ He ascended up into heaven ” in the view of His 
 disciples. It was in existence on the day of Stephen’s 
 
 i 
 
 martyrdom, for he looked into heaven when he was 
 dying. It was in existence in Paul’s time, for he 
 was caught up into it. Moreover, if heaven is yet 
 
32 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 to be fashioned, where are Enoch and Elijah now ? 
 And where is Christ’s body now ? And where are all 
 the glorified saints ? Besides, is not Christ already 
 at work preparing the place for us ? (John xiv. 2). 
 Unless we are to believe in two heavens, one already 
 existing, and another for which the present heaven 
 is to be exchanged, a notion of which Scripture gives 
 no hint, it is simply impossible to believe that our 
 earth is to be heaven, and one can only wonder that 
 any one ever conceived that it could be. 
 
 (c) Once more, on the supposition that heaven is 
 to be this earth transformed by the last fires, what, 
 we may ask, is to become of the bodies of the saints, 
 which have been raised from the grave, in the interval 
 during which the globe is to be wrapped in those 
 flames ? For mark the sequence of events required 
 by the theory. First, the General Judgment takes 
 place, “ all the dead, small and great,” having been 
 raised from their sleep by the archangel’s trump, 
 and clothed with their bodies again, to stand before 
 the Great White Throne. When they have been 
 judged and sentenced, then ensues this final fire, 
 which, according to the theory we are considering, is 
 to purge our earth and fit it to be a home for the 
 saints. But what, we say, becomes of those saints 
 during the progress of the conflagration, and until 
 the earth has sufficiently cooled down to permit of 
 habitation ?—and we are told by those who hold this 
 theory that it must require thousands of years before 
 another solid crust could be formed upon its surface 
 
A Settling of Localities. 33 
 
 capable of sustaining organic life. The saints must 
 either remain in the midst of those awful fires, or 
 they must be removed elsewhere until they are over. 
 Some advocates of the theory are bold enough to 
 maintain the former of these alternatives. The bodies 
 of the saints, they tell us, will be of such a nature as to 
 be able to live unharmed in the midst of flame. Fancy 
 heaven begun in fire ! Is not the very conception its 
 own sufficient refutation ? But if, on the other hand, 
 the saints are removed, until that last fire has done 
 its work, into another place, then we have another 
 theory to which Scripture gives no countenance—the 
 theory of a temporary heaven, only to be occupied till 
 the real heaven is ready. In such confusion and 
 violence to Scripture does this hypothesis inevitably 
 land us. 
 
 (d) Again, is it not clear that the uniform tendency 
 of the Bible mode of speaking on this subject of 
 heaven is to turn our thoughts away from earth alto¬ 
 gether to some outside and different region ? Heaven 
 and earth are there always opposed. They are two 
 different and distinct entities. Our affections are 
 summoned from the things on earth to the things in 
 heaven. The happiness of the saints is “ reserved 
 in heaven,” not promised us to come out of the earth. 
 The only mode in which it is possible to reconcile 
 this style of speech with the theory which we are 
 considering, is to resort to the idea that the final 
 heaven of the after-judgment is to be different from 
 
 the present heaven where Christ is, into which He 
 
 c 
 
34 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 has gone for the express purpose of preparing a place 
 for His people,—an idea which, as we have already 
 seen, is utterly untenable. Notwithstanding the 
 respect, therefore, which we have for some of those 
 who hold and advocate the doctrine that heaven is 
 to be on this earth, we are compelled to believe on 
 every ground that this is not only not taught in 
 Scripture, but is in plain and strong opposition to 
 its teaching. Wherever heaven is, it is certainly not 
 to be sought here below. 
 
 3. There is another view of this matter which has 
 been advocated with great ability by some, and which 
 is held unconsciously by many more, viz. that heaven 
 lies all about us; that the spirits of the departed 
 hover in the air round this earth, lingering over the 
 scenes which they once inhabited, so that in reality, 
 though invisible, they are perhaps as near us in death 
 as they were in life. Isaac Taylor seems to have 
 held some such opinion. In his Physical Theory of 
 Another Life , he conjectures that “ within the space 
 occupied by the visible and ponderable universe, and 
 on all sides of us, there is existing and moving another 
 element fraught with another species of life, corporeal 
 indeed and various in its orders, but not open to the 
 cognizance of those who are confined to the conditions 
 of animal organization, not to be seen, nor to be 
 heard, nor to be felt by man. Our present conjecture 
 reaches to the extent of supposing that, within the 
 space encircled by the sidereal revolutions, there exists 
 and moves a second universe, not less real than the 
 
35 
 
 A Settling of Localities. 
 
 one we are at present conversant with,—a universe 
 elaborate in structure and replete with life, a uni¬ 
 verse conscious, perhaps, of the material spheres, or 
 unconscious of them, and believing itself to be the 
 only reality. Our planets in their sweep do not 
 perforate the structure of this invisible creation, our 
 suns do not scorch its plains, for the two collateral 
 systems are not connected by any active affinities.” 
 
 Now all this is very ingenious. But it is pure 
 conjecture. There is not a particle of evidence for it. 
 It may be line fancy, but it is only fancy. Besides, 
 it is quite opposed to the conclusions which we have 
 drawn already from various scriptures, to the effect 
 that heaven is no vague, tenuous region, “ where the 
 inmates float in ether or are mysteriously suspended 
 upon nothing,” but is a definitely defined locality, as 
 real and palpable as this earth itself, a material place 
 fitted for the abode of material bodies. These objec¬ 
 tions to the theory are insuperable; and there are 
 others still weightier, which will appear by and by, 
 and which combine with them to disprove it utterly. 
 
 4. It is the beautiful idea of some that the abode 
 of the departed now, and their and our future home 
 throughout eternity, is to be found in some of those 
 stars which, on a clear night, we see twinkling in 
 space. Modern astronomy has made many of these 
 heavenly bodies very real to us. The powerful 
 telescopes with which we are now familiar have 
 brought them wonderfully near, and the discoveries 
 of spectrum analysis have made us acquainted with 
 
36 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 their very composition. As the eminent astronomer, 
 Mr. E. A. Proctor, says : “ Thus we are led to a num¬ 
 ber of interesting conclusions even respecting orbs 
 which no telescope that man can construct is likely 
 to reveal to his scrutiny. The existence of such 
 elements as sodium or calcium in those other worlds 
 suggests the probable existence of the familiar 
 compounds of these metals—soda, salt, lime, and so 
 on. Again, the existence of iron and other metals 
 of the same class carries our minds to the various 
 useful purposes which these metals are made to 
 subserve on the earth. We are at once invited to 
 recognise that the orbs circling around those distant 
 suns are not meant merely to be the abode of life, 
 but that intelligent creatures, capable of applying 
 these metals to useful purposes, must exist in 
 those worlds. We need not conclude, indeed, that 
 at the present moment every one of those worlds 
 is peopled with intelligent beings, because we have 
 good reason for believing that throughout an enor¬ 
 mous proportion of the time during which our earth 
 has existed as a world, no intelligent use has been 
 made of the supplies of metal existing in her sub¬ 
 stance. But that at some time or other those worlds 
 have been or will be the abode of intelligent crea¬ 
 tures, seems to be a conclusion very fairly deducible 
 from what we now know of their probable structure ” 
 (Other Worlds than Ours , 247). No wonder that 
 many people have therefore placed heaven in some 
 of those distant worlds. 
 
A Settling of Localities. 37 
 
 There is one passage of Scripture, however, which 
 appears to us to do away with the possibility of such 
 a thing,—the only passage which to our mind gives 
 any clue whatever to the situation of heaven. It 
 is Eph. iv. 8-10: “Wherefore He saith, When He 
 ascended up on high, He led captivity captive, and 
 gave gifts unto men. How that He ascended, what 
 is it but that He also descended first into the lower 
 parts of the earth ? He that descended is the 
 same also that ascended up far above all heavens, 
 that He might fill all things.” The reference here is, 
 of course, to our blessed Lord, and the point bearing 
 on our subject which is brought out in the passage 
 is this, that the place to which He ascended on that 
 memorable day when the disciples watched His form 
 floating upward from the Mount of Olives was some¬ 
 where “ far above all heavens,” or, as the Revised 
 Version more properly renders it, “ far above all the 
 heavens.” Now the place to which He thus winged 
 His flight was plainly the true heaven,—the Paradise 
 to which the penitent thief had gone, and the place 
 which Christ is preparing for His people,—the 
 place to which they will all go to be with Christ, 
 “ that where He is there they may be also.” The 
 heaven where Christ is, is therefore situated “ far 
 above all the heavens.” It is not to be sought on 
 earth, nor in any of the visible regions round about 
 earth, nor in any of the nearer heavenly bodies. It 
 is far beyond all these—“ far above all the heavens.” 
 
 Clearly to understand the significance of this phrase. 
 
38 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 we must remember what Grotius tells us, viz. that 
 the Jews of St. Paul’s day recognised the existence 
 of three regions which they called heavens. The 
 first and lowest was the Coelum nubiferum, where the 
 clouds float and the birds fly. The second and next 
 highest was the Coelum astriferum , the region of the 
 stars. The third and loftiest of all was the Coelum 
 em'pyreum, the great unexplored realm of space 
 beyond. But, says this passage which is before us, 
 heaven is “ far above ” all these regions, high above 
 the clouds, above the stars of our system, above the 
 remotest region to which the ken of the astronomer 
 can pierce. Now, this single statement surely dis¬ 
 proves all the theories which locate the abode of the 
 blest either on earth, or round about it, or in any of 
 the nearer heavenly bodies. Wherever it is, it lies 
 “far above” all these regions—“far above all the 
 heavens.” When the Eedeemer left Olivet that day 
 on His homeward journey, He floated upward through 
 the soft summer air until, as the sacred record states, 
 “ the clouds received Him out of their sight.” For 
 a little we can follow Him in thought in His flight. 
 Upward He is wafted, beyond star after star, and 
 planet after planet—still upward, past all the most 
 remote bodies of our system, till at last neither sight 
 nor thought can follow Him farther—on, on, “ far 
 above all the heavens,” and not till He has left them 
 all behind Him does He reach “ the land which is 
 very far off,” where He is still, and where we hope 
 to be with Him when the time comes for our depar- 
 
A Settling of Localities. 39 
 
 ture to be “ for ever with the Lord.” This passage 
 seems to us to scatter to the winds many a dreamy 
 conjecture regarding heaven. If it leaves us still 
 in uncertainty on many points, it at least saves us 
 from cherishing misapprehensions in which we might 
 otherwise be led to indulge through listening to airy 
 and fine-spun theories which ignore its existence. 
 
 Does it help us any further ? It tells us, with 
 no uncertain sound, where heaven is not, and tells 
 us, moreover, in what direction it is to be looked for, 
 if it is to be found at all. Has it any more informa¬ 
 tion on the subject for us ? Let us see. 
 
 There is one view of its teaching which is at all 
 events worth stating. 
 
 Every one knows that the earth revolves round 
 the sun. Every one also knows that the sun has a 
 revolution of its own on its own axis. But it is 
 not so generally known that, in addition to these two 
 motions, the entire solar system, including the sun, 
 the earth, and all the other related planets and satel¬ 
 lites, is sweeping through space with a velocity which 
 is almost inconceivable. This motion was first dis¬ 
 covered by the celebrated astronomer Sir William 
 Herschel more than a hundred years ago, and its 
 existence has long since been clearly demonstrated 
 by the researches and observations of such men as 
 Argelander, Otto Struve, Miidler, and Airy. We now 
 know, not only the fact of this motion, but we also 
 know the direction in which, led by the sun, and 
 accompanied by our sister planets, we are all travel- 
 
40 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 ling by means of it, and we know, too, at what rate 
 we are going. 
 
 Every one who has swept the midnight sky with 
 his telescope is familiar with the constellation Her¬ 
 cules. In that remarkable group of stars is one 
 known to astronomers as rrr, and it is towards this 
 star that our sun and all his system are speeding 
 with a velocity, causing them, we are told, to travel 
 over the enormous distance of thirty-three millions 
 three hundred and fifty thousand miles every year. 
 Now, it is the opinion of eminent authorities that in 
 this motion our system is really performing a revolu¬ 
 tion round a central sun, which is to it and to all 
 other systems of the starry heavens what our sun is 
 to us. To enter here into the arguments on the 
 subject, or to explain the mode in which the con¬ 
 clusion referred to has been reached, would be 
 impossible and out of place. I can only indicate the 
 results which have been arrived at, and even these 
 very briefly. 
 
 Most people know the Pleiades, of whose “ sweet 
 influences ” (Job xxxviii. 31) the Old Testament 
 revisers have robbed us. In that remarkable group 
 of stars is one named Alcyone, its principal member, 
 and this distant orb is declared to be the central 
 sun about which the universe of stars comprising 
 our whole astral system revolves. So distant is 
 Alcyone from our sun that it takes a ray of his 
 light over five hundred years to reach it, and over 
 eighteen millions of years are required to perform 
 
A Settling of Localities. 41 
 
 one revolution round it. The figures are bewilder¬ 
 ing in their immensity. The whole conception 
 indeed is so stupendous,—the conception of all the 
 suns and all the systems of the universe governed 
 by this great central sun, and sweeping silently and 
 continually round it, through long cycles of years, 
 that our utmost efforts can scarcely grasp it. Now, 
 this great central sun is, as it were, the capital of 
 the universe. It governs all the rest, and it is at 
 least a beautiful theory, if nothing more, that it is the 
 seat of heaven. What if here be erected, so far as 
 locality can be supposed to be connected there¬ 
 with, the throne of God ? What if in this magni¬ 
 ficent world, which is indeed “ far, far away ” to a 
 degree unconceived when the “ happy land ” is sung 
 of in our children’s familiar hymn, be the place of 
 which our Master made on our behalf the memor¬ 
 able request—“ Father, I will that they also whom 
 Thou hast given me be with me where I am, that 
 they may behold my glory which Thou hast given 
 me” (John xvii. 24)? To dogmatize on the subject 
 would, of course, be folly. But if, as we hope we 
 have proved, there be a definite locality called 
 heaven, if this heaven cannot possibly be on this 
 earth, or in any of the celestial bodies which circle 
 immediately near it, if it is, as the apostle declares, 
 “ far above all the heavens,” may it not possibly be 
 that in this grand central metropolis of the universe 
 is to be found “ that radiant shore ” which we 
 think of and speak of as “ the better land ” ? 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 0 
 
 (Eo5. 
 
 4.H 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 I 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 t 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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CHAPTER III. 
 
 GOD. 
 
 TTTE have now, as it were, sighted the heavenly 
 *" world. We have clearly ascertained that 
 there is such a “ better country.” Though we are 
 not able to fix its exact position with any certainty, 
 as one can fix upon the map the position of an earthly 
 region, yet we are as sure that somewhere among the 
 multitude of worlds which God has made, somewhere 
 in the unexplored regions of space, there is such a 
 “ land of pure delight,” as Columbus was, in the 
 fifteenth century, that a new world lay beyond the 
 ocean in the then undiscovered West. He had never 
 seen that new world. Neither have we seen heaven. 
 But, though we have not seen, we believe in its exist¬ 
 ence, and are as sure that, after our rough voyage 
 over the sea of time, we shall land upon its shores, 
 as he was that sooner or later he would reach the 
 great continent on which at last he set foot. 
 
 We now want to know something of the inhabit¬ 
 ants of the heavenly country. As the sailor, when 
 his telescope has revealed to him the dim outlines of 
 
 45 
 
46 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 some hitherto unknown island, lowers his pinnace, 
 and, sailing cautiously and curiously toward it, tries 
 to make out what manner of people it contains, so, 
 now that we have gained a glimpse of heaven, we too 
 must endeavour to learn what we can of its denizens. 
 Oh for eyes anointed with God’s own eye-salve to 
 see them! 
 
 We begin with the Highest—the dread Sovereign 
 of heaven. Let us pause for a moment before we 
 advance towards Him. For we must tread reverently 
 and carefully. “ Put off thy shoes from off thy feet,” 
 0 reader, “ for the place whereon thou standest 
 is holy ground.” “ For who in the heaven can be 
 compared unto Jehovah ? who among the sons of 
 the mighty can be likened unto Jehovah ? God is 
 greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, 
 and to be had in reverence of all those that are 
 about Him. 0 Lord God of Hosts, who is a strong 
 Lord like unto Thee, or to Thy faithfulness round 
 about Thee ? ” There must be here no indulging of 
 mere unsanctified curiosity—no seeking to gratify 
 a prying, prurient inquisitiveness. If, like Moses, 
 we say, with all holy awe, to the Most High, “ I 
 beseech Thee, show me Thy glory,” we must hear 
 the same dread voice speaking to us which spoke 
 ages ago to him —“ Go down, charge the people lest 
 they break through unto the Lord to gaze, and many 
 of them perish.” 
 
 Of course there is a God. We are not concerned 
 here with the proofs that there is. If we were 
 
47 
 
 God. 
 
 arguing with an atheist it would be necessary to con¬ 
 sider them, and we should have no lack of proofs 
 to submit to him. We should point him to the 
 universe,—to this earth, with all its marvellous pro¬ 
 ducts and potencies, to the other worlds on worlds 
 which the telescope reveals to us, to the myriads of 
 beings which we see by the aid of the microscope, 
 and we should ask—Who made all these ? Every 
 effect has a cause. Where is the great First Cause 
 of all these wonderful effects ? Or we should ply 
 him with the argument from design, of which we 
 must never allow any specious philosophy to rob us, 
 and ask him to consider his own bodily frame, so 
 fearfully and wonderfully made, with so many nice 
 adaptations and exquisite adjustments, every organ 
 perfect and complete, wanting nothing, and we should 
 ask—Whence all this ? Who designed it ? Who 
 fashioned it ? Paley’s watch, found on the moor, 
 did not more certainly proclaim a watchmaker, by 
 its manifest proof of design and contrivance and 
 means adapted to end, than does the world proclaim 
 a world-maker, and man a creator, to the thoughtful 
 and unbiassed mind. Napoleon I. was far from being 
 a distinctively religious man, but the quiet rebuke 
 which he administered to a group of his officers, on 
 whom he came by surprise one night during the pro¬ 
 gress of the expedition to Egypt, as they sat on the 
 quarterdeck of one of the ships of the squadron, 
 conversing in tones evidently tinctured with the 
 prevalent infidelity of France, proved that he had 
 
48 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 at least discernment enough to see the folly of the 
 notion that all this great system of things has no 
 cause. The story has been often told, but it will 
 bear repeating. Striding into the midst of them, and 
 pointing up to the moon and stars, which beamed 
 down upon ship and sea from a cloudless sky : “ Gen¬ 
 tlemen,” he said, “ who made all these ? ” It were 
 well if many who profess to doubt or deny the exist¬ 
 ence of the great First Cause would allow themselves 
 to hear and answer Buonaparte’s question. “ The fool 
 hath said in his heart, There is no God,” and surely 
 a fool he proclaims himself by the very thought. 
 
 But we are not dealing with atheists just now, 
 and it would take us away from our purpose to 
 enlarge on the proofs of the being of a God. We 
 “ believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of 
 heaven and earth.” Believe ? Do we not know 
 that He is ? Should we not as soon think of 
 doubting our own existence as His ? But let me 
 ask a question. You believe in God,—you know 
 He exists,—have you ever tried to form a mental 
 conception of Him ? I say a conception, not an 
 image. You could not form an image of Him in your 
 mind. But have you ever tried to think God—to 
 conceive to yourself His mysterious Presence ? Per¬ 
 haps you say that too is impossible. Then eternal 
 life is impossible. For “ this is life eternal, that they 
 might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, 
 whom Thou hast sent.” Certainly, complete know¬ 
 ledge of Him is impossible. The old question, “Canst 
 
49 
 
 God. 
 
 thou by searching find out God ? Canst thou find 
 out the Almighty unto perfection ? ” must as cer¬ 
 tainly be answered in the negative now as it was 
 in the days of Job. The finite can never wholly 
 grasp the infinite: the creature need never hope 
 fully to know the Creator. As soon might the 
 fly, which creeps over the page which a Newton is 
 studying, comprehend all the mighty problems which 
 are passing through the philosopher’s brain while 
 he reads, as we, moving about here on the surface 
 of this globe, expect to understand all the mind of 
 God. But know Him we must. We cannot help con¬ 
 ceiving Him in our minds in some way. Men have 
 erred in forming material representations of Him. 
 These are, and must always be, not only sinful but 
 absurd. “Forasmuch as we are the offspring of 
 God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like 
 unto gold or silver or stone, graven by art and man’s 
 device” (Acts xvii. 29). But that is no reason why 
 we should not form a proper representation—a men¬ 
 tal representation—not a picture, not an image, either 
 mental or material, but a conception fitted to give 
 substance and reality to our thoughts and ideas about 
 Him. Have you ever tried to form such a true con¬ 
 ception ? Have you ever sat down, and with closed 
 eyes, and minds closed also against all outward things 
 and influences, and only open above, tried to think 
 your God ? If not, will you let me help you to do 
 so now ? 
 
 First of all, the thought of God must not be the 
 
 D 
 
50 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 thought of any bodily shape. On Tuesday morning, 
 22nd September 1646, the “Minutes” of the 
 Westminster Divines, then sitting in the Jerusalem 
 Chamber at Westminster Abbey, tell us that they put 
 before themselves this question for solution—“ Hath 
 God any body, or is He to be seen with bodily eyes?” 
 In a little while they formulated this answer—“ God 
 is a Spirit, invisible, without body or bodily parts, 
 not like a man or any other creature.” They could 
 come to no other conclusion with the Bible in their 
 hands, and giving it the undivided allegiance which 
 was one of the most marked characteristics of those 
 eminent men. True, we read in Scripture of God’s 
 eyes, His ears, His hands, and so forth. But we all 
 know that these are metaphorical expressions. “ God 
 is a Spirit,” and “ a spirit hath not flesh and bones.” 
 As we sit trying to imagine what heaven is like, and 
 to conceive to ourselves its great Sovereign, we must 
 not therefore think of any bodily shape. On the 
 contrary, we must most carefully and completely 
 eliminate such a thought from our conception, if we 
 would have it true. 
 
 But then, on the other hand, we must beware of 
 rushing into the opposite extreme, and, while believing 
 that we believe in God, losing any conception of Him 
 that is of any worth by evaporating the Godhead 
 into any of the profound nothings which are all that 
 some would leave us in these days. He is some¬ 
 thing more than simple Being, something more than 
 inscrutable Force or mere Causality. We cannot be 
 
God. 
 
 51 
 
 contented with being told that He is the unknown 
 and unknowable Cause of all things, still less with 
 hearing that God is simply another name for the 
 moral order of the universe, or that He can only 
 be defined as a Power not ourselves which makes 
 for righteousness. Yet men’s ideas often seem to 
 oscillate between these two extremes—the extreme 
 of thinking of God as a visible being, conceived of 
 and represented in visible forms varying according 
 to the bent of their own minds, and the other, 
 perhaps not less dangerous, extreme of whittling 
 away the conception of Godhead to some tenuous 
 and intangible abstraction worth nothing. There is 
 Substance in God. And there is Personality. He 
 is neither unthinkable nor unknowable. He is not a 
 mere Influence diffused mysteriously through space. 
 True, He is incomprehensible. We cannot know 
 Him perfectly. There will always be infinitely more 
 in Him than we can either conceive or express. But 
 know Him we can, and know Him correctly, though 
 partially. It is difficult to put the truth on the 
 matter into words. But what I desire to convey is 
 this—God is. He is a veritable God, not a vague, 
 mystic impersonality, nor mere idea, nor power, but 
 as really a living Being as we are (rather infinitely 
 more really); a personal Being, a Being to be known, 
 to be loved, to be obeyed, to be served; a Being who 
 lives, who loves, who acts, who governs. 
 
 But when this has been said, and when we 
 would think further of God, difficulties thicken 
 
52 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 round us. We can sympathise with Simonides, who, 
 when asked by Hiero of Syracuse, “ What is God ? ” 
 desired a day to consider the question. When that 
 was over, he asked two days more. When these were 
 ended, he besought four, so continuing to double the 
 days each time his reply was sought, till the king 
 asked him what he meant by such strange conduct. 
 “ The more I think of God,” he replied, “ the more 
 He is still unknown to me.” But there is much 
 that we can know of Him, and it is obviously our 
 duty to know all we can of One “ whom to know is 
 life everlasting.” 
 
 Where, however, shall we go for information ? 
 Not much is to be learned from the Divine names 
 used in Scripture,—the Adonai, or the El, or Elah, 
 or Elohim, or Eloah, or Jehovah, or El Shaddai of 
 the Hebrew of the Old Testament; or the Theos or 
 Kurios of the Greek of the New—and still less from 
 our English names for the Supreme Being. The 
 very derivation of our word God is disputed. It is 
 identical with Good, say some. God is the Good 
 One. But the latest authorities tell us that this old 
 idea is quite erroneous, and that the name is of 
 unknown origin. Even if we knew its etymology for 
 certain, we should gain no more than an idea of what 
 were the thoughts of the old Saxons about God. 
 We must carefully search the Scriptures for light as 
 to what the Supreme Being really is, and probably 
 the best summary anywhere to be found of their 
 teaching on the point is that given us in the Shorter 
 
53 
 
 God. 
 
 Catechism of the Westminster Assembly in answer 
 to the question, “ What is God ? ” The beautiful 
 traditional story of the composition of this answer, 
 which connects it with the name of George Gillespie, 
 must probably be abandoned, however much we 
 may regret the necessity. But, whatever be its 
 history, the answer itself stands unrivalled—“ God 
 is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in 
 His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, good¬ 
 ness, and truth.” Every word here is pregnant with 
 meaning. 
 
 “ God is a Spirit,” or better, perhaps, both in 
 grammar and theology, “ God is Spirit.” This is 
 “the profoundest word in human language,” Stier 
 well says. What does it mean ? It means for one 
 thing, that God is immaterial. None of the properties 
 of matter can be predicated of Him. Moreover, He 
 is not only immaterial, but incorporeal. “ A spirit 
 hath not flesh and bones.” But yet He is personal. 
 He is a real living Being. He is an “ Infinite ” Being, 
 however. In all respects He is without limits or 
 bounds. He fills heaven and earth. As Trismegistus 
 sublimely said, He is “ a circle whose centre is every¬ 
 where, but His circumference nowhere.” Or, as 
 David still more sublimely sings, “ If I ascend up 
 into heaven, Thou art there: if I make my bed in 
 Sheol, behold, Thou art there. If I take the wings 
 of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of 
 the sea, even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy 
 right hand shall hold me.” And He is “Eternal.” 
 
54 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 There never was a time when He was not; there 
 never will be a time when He will not be. As 
 He is above and beyond all the limitations of space, 
 so He is above and beyond all the limitations of 
 time. “ Before the mountains were brought forth, 
 or ever Thou hadst formed the earth and the world, 
 even from everlasting to everlasting Thou art God! ” 
 “Of old hast Thou laid the foundation of the earth, 
 and the heavens are the work of Thy hands! They 
 shall perish, but Thou shalt endure; yea, all of them 
 shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt Thou 
 change them, and they shall be changed. But Thou 
 art the same, and Thy years shall have no end! ” 
 Nor can He ever become what He is not now. He 
 is “ Unchangeable,” the same for evermore both in 
 essence and attributes, subject to no process of de¬ 
 velopment or self-evolution, still less to any decrease 
 or diminution of any kind. His lofty description of 
 Himself is, “ I am the Lord ; I change not.” More¬ 
 over, as these three, Infinity, Eternity, and Immuta¬ 
 bility, are to be predicated of His essence, so are they 
 to be predicated of His attributes. He is infinitely, 
 eternally, and immutably wise; infinitely, eternally, 
 and immutably powerful; infinitely, eternally, and 
 immutably holy ; infinitely, eternally, and immutably 
 just; infinitely, eternally, and immutably good; and 
 infinitely, eternally, and immutably true. “ Great is 
 our Lord, and of great power; His understanding is 
 infinite.” The cry of His worshippers must ever be, 
 “ Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty ! ” “ Just and 
 
55 
 
 God. 
 
 true are Thy ways, Thou King of Saints! ” We 
 must describe Him as He described Himself,— 
 “ The Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffer¬ 
 ing, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping 
 mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and trans¬ 
 gression and sin, and that will by no means clear 
 the guilty/’ 
 
 This is a description of God—His own description 
 of Himself. But when we have received it, and 
 believed it, our difficulties are far from over. What 
 else can we expect but difficulties when dealing with 
 such a theme ? We are handling the sublimest, the 
 most transcendently grand subject that the mind of 
 man could think of, and we, poor creatures of a day, 
 need not be surprised if at every step we are con¬ 
 fronted by problems regarding it which make the 
 brain reel, and almost drive us back, in despair of 
 ever gaining any comprehension of the subject we 
 have undertaken to inquire into. God would not be 
 God if it were otherwise. 
 
 For example, there are three Persons in this great 
 Godhead. Hot three Gods—only one. Hor yet 
 three persons in the same sense as any three of us 
 are persons. The word person, indeed, is in this 
 case inadequate to express all that it is intended to 
 convey; but neither ancient theology nor modern 
 lias been able to find a better, and so we must be 
 content with it. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are 
 true Persons, yet utterly unlike any other per¬ 
 sonalities we have ever known. “ In modern 
 
56 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 philosophical usage, the term person means a separate 
 and distinct rational individual. But the tri-person¬ 
 ality of God is not a numerical or essential trinity 
 of three beings, like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, 
 for this would be Tritheism; nor is it only, on the 
 other hand, merely a threefold aspect and mode of 
 manifestation in the Sabellian or Swedenborgian 
 sense, but it is a real, objective, and eternal, though 
 ineffable, distinction in one divine being ” (Schaff, 
 Creeds, ii. 70). These three are distinct Persons, 
 for one speaks to the other, loves the other, com¬ 
 mands the other. Yet they are one, for “ The Lord 
 our God is one Lord.” There is a subordination 
 amongst them, for the Father is first, the Son second, 
 and the Holy Spirit third; the Son is of the Father, 
 and the Holy Spirit of the Father and the Son; 
 the Father sends the Son, and the Father and Son 
 send the Holy Spirit; the Father works through the 
 Son, and the Father and Son work through the Holy 
 Spirit. The Son never sends the Father, nor the 
 Holy Spirit the Son. Yet, in spite of this distinc¬ 
 tion and order and subordination, all three are 
 perfectly and entirely equal, and the same in sub¬ 
 stance. You say you cannot understand this. It 
 seems to you incomprehensible. Is it extraordinary 
 if it is ? Does it in this respect differ from many 
 other truths, some of them truths of Scripture, and 
 some merely truths of ordinary everyday life ? You 
 and I are surrounded by incomprehensibilities 
 wherever we go. Our life in this body, our souls, 
 
57 
 
 God. 
 
 the connection between the thinking part within us 
 and the corporeal frame — who can comprehend 
 these ? Who indeed can comprehend the very 
 growth of a common blade of grass by the roadside ? 
 Much more, surely, we may expect to find great 
 depths of mystery in the nature and being of the 
 Most High. Could we believe that He is God 
 if there were no mysteries about Him—if every¬ 
 thing within and around Him was plain and level 
 to our feeble comprehension ? Surely not. So, 
 awestruck as we are, and must ever be, by the 
 mystery of the great doctrine of the Trinity, which 
 utterly transcends our puny intellects, and towers 
 above us like some great Alp at whose base we stand 
 gazing and wondering, while its head is hidden 
 among the clouds, we yet cry, “ I cannot understand 
 it, but I must believe it,” and with humbled, 
 chastened, awestruck minds, and bated breath, we 
 blend our voices in the general creed of Christendom, 
 and say, “ I believe in God the Father Almighty, 
 maker of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His 
 only Son our Lord ... I believe in the Holy Ghost.” 
 
 With the added light which we have now got, 
 let us in thought put our feet reverently upon the 
 holy soil of heaven, and look upon God. What do we 
 see ? Conceive the sight if you can. There is the 
 Father, whom no man hath seen at any time, whom 
 no man can see, who dwells in light to which none 
 can approach. There is the Holy Ghost, that mystic 
 Person who, ever since the morning when He brooded 
 
58 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 over the waters which lay dead and dark, in leaden 
 sullenness, over chaos, has been working with mys¬ 
 terious might, continually bringing life out of death. 
 But, lo, a third glorious Personage! Our eyes, 
 strained and dazzled by gazing upon incorporeal 
 spirits, rest upon a bodily form. But such a 
 body ! A glory beams from within and all around 
 it. But see ! What are those marks upon the brow ? 
 They seem the imprint of some thorny circlet which 
 has been pressed rudely, and of purpose, down upon 
 it. The hands, too! Look at them! In each 
 palm a gash, piercing right through. And the feet! 
 Each is similarly marked. Oh! it is Jesus Christ, 
 and, as He moves about among the shining throng, 
 every knee is prostrated in adoration. 
 
 “ Lo ! elders worship at His feet; 
 
 The Church adores around, 
 
 With vials full of odours rich, 
 
 And harps of sweetest sound.” 
 
 But stop a moment, some one says; there is some¬ 
 thing in what you say which we cannot understand. 
 You have spoken of God as visible in heaven. 
 How, is it not the uniform representation of Scripture 
 that He is invisible ? Is not invisibility, in fact, one 
 of His attributes ? Is He not “ the King eternal, 
 immortal, invisible ” ? Is not one of His names 
 “ the invisible God ” ? And have there not been 
 quoted already such statements as—“ Ho man hath 
 seen God at any time; ” “ Whom no man hath seen 
 or can see ” ? How, then, speak of seeing in heaven 
 
59 
 
 God. 
 
 a Being who is expressly declared to be unseen and 
 unseeable ? 
 
 Now, if these Scripture statements mean that the 
 Divine Being is in His very nature invisible, and 
 can never be otherwise, then, of course, we freely 
 grant that the meditation in which we have just 
 been indulging is only fancy. To say that what is 
 essentially and invariably invisible can never be 
 seen, is, of course, a truism. But is that the correct 
 representation of the case ? With all reverence 
 and humility, we submit that it cannot be. Bor 
 God has been visible more than once or twice in 
 man’s history. He appeared to Abraham on several 
 occasions. “ Jehovah appeared to Abraham ” (Gen. 
 xii. 7),—so runs the record. He appeared, too, to 
 Jacob, to Moses, to Manoah, and others; and Isaiah 
 expressly says—“I saw the Lord” (Isa. vi. 1). 
 But, you reply, were not those appearances visions 
 of Christ, the only-begotten Son who “hath declared 
 Him,” while the Bather is unseen and invisible ? 
 Supposing this were so, is the matter settled ? Let 
 it be remembered that our blessed Lord had not 
 assumed human nature at the times now spoken of. 
 It could not, therefore, have been in that human 
 nature that He appeared, if those appearances were 
 His appearances; and if invisibility is an essential 
 and invariable attribute of the Divine Being, then 
 Christ is and was invisible as well as the Bather. 
 But if one Divine Person has been visible, what 
 becomes of the position that all three are invisible ? 
 
60 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 So much for what has occurred in the past. 
 What are we told about the present ? Why, Christ 
 expressly says—“ In heaven their angels do always 
 behold the face of my Father who is in heaven.” 
 There is certainly no ascription of invisibility in this 
 passage. We are most concerned here, however, 
 with the great future. What of it ? Is it or is it 
 not said that God will be seen by the saints in glory ? 
 Let Scripture give the answer in its own words— 
 “ Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty.” 
 Job cried—“ Though, after my skin, worms destroy 
 this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God; whom I 
 shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold and 
 not another, though my reins be consumed within 
 me ! ” David says—“ As for me, I will behold Thy 
 face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied, when I 
 awake, with Thy likeness.” John says—“ We shall 
 see Him as He is; ” and the apocalyptic angel, in 
 one of those glowing descriptions of heaven which he 
 gave to the lonely exile of Patmos, and which have 
 thrilled the hearts of readers ever since they were 
 put on record, expressly mentions as one of its 
 chief glories, that “ they shall see His face.” In 
 view of all this testimony from past, present, and 
 future, are we to maintain the essential and everlast¬ 
 ing invisibility of the Divine Being as an article of 
 the faith ? How can we ? 
 
 What, then, you say, is the meaning of the re¬ 
 peated pronouncements as to God’s invisibility ? 
 And how are those pronouncements to be harmonized 
 
God. 
 
 61 
 
 with the facts as to divine appearances which we 
 have mentioned ? It seems to us that both the 
 explanation and harmonization are very simple and 
 easy. God is invisible to man in man’s present im¬ 
 perfect state. But “ when that which is perfect is 
 come, then that which is in part shall be done 
 away,” and we shall see even as we are seen, and 
 know even as we are known. “ No man hath seen 
 God at any time,” unless God was pleased, under 
 special circumstances, to render Himself visible. 
 He dwells “ in the light which no man can approach 
 unto.” The blaze of that light would be too much 
 for mortal eyes. Hence the solemn charge to Moses 
 about the Israelites—“ Go down, charge the people, 
 lest they break through unto the Lord to gaze, and 
 many of them perish.” When Isaiah had his 
 splendid vision of God, he groaned out—“Woe is 
 me! for I am undone, ... for mine eyes have seen 
 the King, the Lord of hosts; ” and John, when he 
 saw his Lord, “ fell at His feet as dead.” But in 
 heaven it is and will be otherwise. The beautiful 
 vision of God’s face will there not only be possible, 
 but will constitute one of the chief joys. This body 
 of our humiliation, which clogs and confines us so 
 much now, will be gone. We shall be “like Him,” 
 with bodies made “ like unto Christ’s own glorious 
 body,” and souls purified and cleansed. That which, 
 from the necessities of our fallen nature, renders the 
 invisibility of the Divine Being at once a mercy and 
 a privation, will then be done away, and, being done 
 
62 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 away, the scales which have hidden the great God 
 from us for so long shall drop from our eyes; and 
 who can paint or imagine the bliss or wonder of the 
 first moment when we shall see in the land of glory 
 “ the King in His beauty ” ? That we shall, is as 
 certain as that we shall be there. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
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 w^a 
 
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CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE CHERUBIM. 
 
 fX the journey of exploration which we are 
 supposing ourselves to make, we have now 
 arrived in heaven, and have gone right up to the 
 throne of - God. We have gazed, so far as mortal 
 eyes can now gaze, on Him “ whom no man hath 
 seen or can see.” Let us now look at the various 
 orders of beings, inferior to Him, superior to us, 
 which descend in ever-receding ranks, like the 
 various courses of masonry in some great pyramid, 
 from Him, the crowning apex, down to ourselves, 
 the lowermost order of the rational creation. As 
 we do so it will be strange if we are not lost in 
 wonder at each new step, and strange, too, if there 
 is not deepened in us a sense at once of humility 
 and holy awe, as we see the distance, vast and 
 awful, between us and the throne of the Eternal, 
 and if, at the same time, there does not spring up 
 in our breast a feeling of blessed confidence, as we 
 think that this mighty and glorious God, whose 
 
 majesty is so inconceivably magnificent, has been 
 
 E 
 
66 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 brought near us in Christ, so that “ this God is our 
 God ” for evermore. 
 
 That there are in the upper world various ranks 
 of intelligences is clearly indicated in Holy Scrip¬ 
 ture. In Col. i. 16 we read of “ thrones, dominions, 
 principalities, and powers.” In Eph. i. 20, 21, we 
 are told of Christ having been raised from the dead 
 and set at God’s right hand “ in the heavenly places, 
 far above all principality, and power, and might, and 
 dominion, and every name that is named, not only 
 in this world, but also in that which is to come ; ” 
 and similarly in Eom. viii. 38, the same apostle 
 tells us, in almost identical terms, of “ angels, 
 principalities, and powers.” These passages are 
 clear on the matter. They tell us of what we 
 might have expected, that in heaven there are 
 gradations of rank. It would be an exception to 
 all God’s creation if there were not such gradations. 
 Here, on earth, no law can be more clearly traced 
 than the great law of subordination. We have 
 the organic kingdom rising above the inorganic, the 
 animate ruling over the inanimate. At the bottom 
 of the scale we have the dead earth and water. 
 Next come the various members of the vegetable 
 kingdom. These, in turn, are organized among them¬ 
 selves, from the humble lichen which clothes the 
 rocks, and is so hard and dry and dead that it 
 seems difficult to tell whether its nature is vegetable 
 pr mineral, up through order after order, the algse of 
 sea and pond, the wild-flowers of glen and field, the 
 
The Cherubim. 
 
 67 
 
 roses and lilies of the garden, the hushes which blush 
 with ripe fruit in summer, and the trees which are 
 ruddy with it in autumn, up to the great monarchs 
 of the forest which we use to build our houses and 
 our ships. Above the vegetable kingdom comes the 
 animal; and it, in its turn, is divided into lower 
 and higher forms, from the orders which lie on the 
 border-land, as to which it needs the keen eye of 
 the naturalist to tell whether they are animals or 
 plants, and the animalculae, millions of which find 
 room to disport themselves in the glass of water 
 that you raise to your lips on a thirsty summer’s 
 day, up through the myriads of creatures, shelled or 
 naked, which people sea and land, marked by the 
 absence of that recognised dividing mark in the 
 animal world, the backbone; up through vertebrated 
 reptile, and fish, and bird, and beast, to man, the 
 monarch of all he surveys. You see how we rise 
 step by step, from lower to higher, from higher to 
 highest. In the human family itself, the same 
 grand law of subordination still holds. There is a 
 regular ascent from the tribes of savage lands, with 
 their low intelligence, and unrestrained passions, 
 and uncivilised life, up to the proud product of 
 our Western culture. Does the reign of this 
 law stop here ? On earth it does, for on earth 
 man is the highest inhabitant. “ Thou hast put 
 all things under his feet! ” But we pass from 
 earth to the inhabited world beyond, which we are 
 now engaged in exploring, and onward still goes the 
 
68 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 grand march of the progress of this mighty law. 
 Next above man stand the Angels, a little lower 
 than whom he was made. They themselves are 
 organized into orders, from the lowest, the ordinary 
 messengers of heaven, through “ the thrones, and 
 dominions, and principalities, and powers ” which 
 mark out their various ranks, to the Archangels 
 at their head. From the Archangels still onward 
 and upward we sweep, till we reach the Seraphim 
 and Cherubim who stand nearest the throne, and 
 form the last link of the long and splendid chain 
 which binds the great Supreme to all parts of His 
 creation. It is at this topmost link we are now 
 to look. 
 
 You ask for a description of the Cherubim. 
 Every one knows the popular idea of what they 
 are, as embodied in the shape given them by the 
 sculptor. With him, a cherub is a childish form 
 with two tiny wings. But, if Scripture is to be 
 taken as an authority on the subject, this is about 
 as different from the correct representation of a 
 cherub as anything could well be. Happily we 
 are able to give an authoritative description of 
 Cherubim in the words of one qualified to give 
 it as no ordinary man could be. Ezekiel saw 
 Cherubim, and, in one of the most glowing passages 
 of the book which bears his name, he tells us what 
 he saw. He was by the river Chebar, and he says : 
 “ I looked, and behold, a whirlwind came out of 
 the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, 
 
The Cherubim. 
 
 69 
 
 and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst 
 thereof as the colour of amber, out of the midst of 
 the fire: also out of the midst thereof came the 
 likeness of four living creatures. And this was 
 their appearance; they had the likeness of a man, 
 and every one had four faces, and every one had 
 four wings. And their feet were straight feet; 
 and the sole of their feet was like the sole of a 
 calf’s foot; and they sparkled like the colour of 
 burnished brass. And they had the hands of a 
 man under their wings on their four sides; and 
 they four had their faces and their wings. Their 
 wings were joined one to another; they turned not 
 when they went; they went every one straight 
 forward. As for the likeness of their faces, they 
 four had the face of a man and the face of a lion 
 on the right side; and they four had the face of 
 an ox on the left side; they four also had the face 
 of an eagle. Thus were their faces: and their 
 wings were stretched upward; two wings of every 
 one were joined one to another, and two covered 
 their bodies. And they went every one straight 
 forward: whither the spirit was to go, they went; 
 and they turned not when they went. As for the 
 likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was 
 like burning coals of fire, and like the appearance 
 of lamps: it went up and down among the living 
 creatures; and the fire was bright, and out of the 
 fire went forth lightning. And the living creatures 
 ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of 
 
70 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 lightning. Now, as I beheld the living creatures, 
 behold one wheel upon the earth by the living 
 creatures, with his four faces. The appearance of 
 the wheels and their work was like unto the colour 
 of a beryl: and they four had one likeness: and 
 their appearance and their work was as it were a 
 wheel in the middle of a wheel. When they went, 
 they went upon their four sides ; and they turned 
 not when they went. As for their rings, they were 
 so high that they were dreadful; and their rings 
 were full of eyes round about them four. And 
 when the living creatures went, the wheels went 
 by them; and when the living creatures were lifted 
 up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up. 
 Whithersoever the spirit was to go, they went; 
 thither was their spirit to go; and the wheels were 
 lifted up over against them: for the spirit of the 
 living creatures was in the wheels. When those 
 went, these went; and when those stood, these 
 stood; and when those were lifted up from the 
 earth, the wheels were lifted up over against them : 
 for the spirit of the living creatures was in the 
 wheels. And the likeness of the firmament upon 
 the heads of the living creatures was as the colour 
 of the terrible crystal, stretched forth over their 
 heads above. And under the firmament were their 
 wings straight, the one toward the other; every one 
 had two, which covered on this side, and every one 
 had two, which covered on that side, their bodies. 
 And when they went, I heard the noise of their 
 
The Cherubim. 
 
 11 
 
 wings, like the noise of great waters, as the voice 
 
 of the Almighty, the voice of speech, as the noise 
 
 of an host. When they stood, they let down their 
 
 wings, and there was a voice from the firmament 
 
 that was over their heads when they stood, and had 
 
 let down their wings. And above the firmament 
 
 that was over their heads was the likeness of a 
 
 throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone: and 
 
 upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness 
 
 as the appearance of a man above upon it. And 
 
 • 
 
 I saw as the colour of amber, as the appearance of 
 fire round about within it; from the appearance of 
 his loins even upward, and from the appearance 
 of his loins even downward, I saw as it were the 
 appearance of fire, and it had brightness round 
 about. As the appearance of the bow that is in 
 the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appear¬ 
 ance of the brightness round about. This was 
 the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the 
 Lord. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face ” 
 (Ezek. i. 4—28). 
 
 Ezekiel had a second glimpse of the Cherubim on 
 another occasion, and again, happily, he tells us 
 what he saw. He says: “ There appeared in the 
 Cherubim the form of a man’s hand under their 
 wings. And when I looked, behold the four wheels 
 by the Cherubim, one wheel by one cherub, and 
 another wheel by another cherub : and the appear¬ 
 ance of the wheels was as the colour of a beryl 
 stone. And as for their appearances, they four had 
 
72 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 one likeness, as if a wheel had been in the midst 
 of a wheel. When they went, they went upon 
 their four sides; they turned not as they went, 
 but to the place whither the head looked they 
 followed it; they turned not as they went. And 
 their whole body, and their backs, and their hands, 
 and their wings, and the wheels, were full of eyes 
 round about, even the wheels that they four had. 
 As for the wheels, it was cried unto them in my 
 hearing, 0 wheel! And every one had four faces. 
 The first face was the face of a cherub, and the 
 second face was the face of a man, and the third the 
 face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle. 
 . . . And when the Cherubim went, the wheels 
 went by them; and when the Cherubim lifted up 
 their wings to mount up from the earth, the same 
 wheels also turned not from beside them. When 
 they stood, these stood ; and when they were lifted 
 up, these lifted up themselves also; for the spirit 
 of the living creatures was in them. Then the 
 glory of the Lord departed from off the threshold of 
 the house, and stood over the Cherubim. And the 
 Cherubim lifted up their wings, and mounted up 
 from the earth in my sight. When they went out, 
 the wheels also were beside them; and every one 
 stood at the door of the east gate of the Lord’s 
 house; and the glory of the God of Israel was over 
 them above. This is the living creature that I saw 
 under the God of Israel by the river of Chebar; 
 and I knew that they were the Cherubim. Every 
 
The Cherubim. 
 
 73 
 
 one had four faces apiece, and every one four wings; 
 and the likeness of the hands of a man was under 
 their wings. And the likeness of their faces was 
 the same faces which I saw by the river of Chebar, 
 their appearances and themselves: they went every 
 one straight forward” (Ezek. x. 8-22). 
 
 Stop now for a moment and try to think what 
 this weird vision actually conveys to us. The task 
 is difficult, but let us at least attempt it. As you 
 stand beside the prophet and look, you see four 
 marvellously strange creatures, different from any¬ 
 thing you ever saw or imagined or dreamed— 
 creatures with a certain human aspect, but this 
 conjoined with features of some of the lower 
 animals. Each has four faces and four wings, and 
 from beneath each wing you see a human hand 
 protruding. All about the creatures is a strange 
 glow and glitter, only comparable to the sheen of 
 highly burnished brass flashing in the sunlight; 
 so that, as the wondrous beings flit before your 
 eyes, it is as if incessant lightnings flashed, quick 
 and lurid, through the air. But more mystic still, 
 Ezekiel saw a strange network of wheels, greenish 
 coloured like beryl; great lofty wheels circling 
 incessantly round and round within others still 
 greater and loftier, and all revolving with a speed 
 dazzling the eye and making the brain swim, as 
 they rolled back and forth through the air, never 
 staying, yet never turning. More startling still, 
 all over the Cherubim and the wheels were great 
 

 74 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 eyes of a piercing keenness, eyes like none that 
 Ezekiel had ever seen, countless in number, and 
 looking him through and through in a manner he 
 had never known. As these unearthly creatures 
 passed and repassed through the air, the whir of 
 their wings made a deep, awesome noise like the 
 steady earth-shaking tramp of a huge body of armed 
 men, or the measured boom of mighty seas breaking, 
 on some night of storm, against the cliffs of an iron- 
 bound coast. No wonder that, as the prophet stood, 
 he was spellbound. No wonder, as he saw this mar¬ 
 vellous, unearthly procession flash past, and heard, 
 as it passed, the strange noises which accompanied 
 it, that he fell on his face like a dead man. Stranger, 
 weirder sight mortal eyes surely never looked upon. 
 
 Now, to understand anything about the Cherubim 
 of whom Ezekiel gives this description, we must look 
 for a moment at their biblical history. Where do 
 they first make their appearance on the sacred 
 canvas ? Almost with the very beginning of the 
 Bible. And they are ushered upon the scene 
 abruptly, without a word of preparation, or intro¬ 
 duction, or description, as if, though spoken of for 
 the first time, they were so well known as to need 
 neither introduction nor comment. In Gen. iii. 24 
 we read—“ So He drove out the man: and He 
 placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubim 
 and a flaming sword, which turned every way, to 
 keep the way of the tree of life.” The Revised 
 Version makes one small change in this statement; 
 
The Cherubim. 
 
 75 
 
 small, but significant. It reads the passage—“ He 
 placed at the east of the garden of Eden the 
 
 Cherubim.” The article not only points to the 
 Cherubim as a definitely understood class of beings, 
 but gives us to understand that the whole of the 
 Cherubim, and not some of them, as might be 
 
 inferred from the reading of our Authorized Version, 
 were placed in this position at the east of Eden. 
 So much for this reference to them. The next 
 
 scriptural mention of them is in Ex. xxv. 18. 
 
 Here, among the directions given by God to Moses 
 with regard to the construction of the Tabernacle, 
 we find this: “ Thou shalt make two Cherubim of 
 gold; of beaten work shalt thou make them, in the 
 two ends of the mercy-seat. And make one Cherub 
 on the one end and the other Cherub on the other 
 end; even of the mercy-seat shall ye make the 
 Cherubim on the two ends thereof. And the 
 
 Cherubim shall stretch forth their wings on high, 
 covering the mercy-seat with their wings, and their 
 faces shall look one to another; toward the mercy- 
 seat shall the faces of the Cherubim be.” Here, 
 again, it is to be noticed that not a word is 
 said as to what the Cherubim were to be like. 
 The pattern of everything else in and about the 
 Tabernacle is described with all the minuteness of 
 a builder’s specification. But nothing whatever is 
 said of the form of the Cherubim. Only directions 
 are given as to the position and aspect of their 
 faces and wings. Moses is simply told to make 
 
76 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 them. Does not this point to the idea that he was 
 familiar with their appearance ? God would have 
 told him their form if it had been necessary. 
 
 Connected with this passage is the cognate one 
 referring to the placing of the Cherubim in the 
 Temple. It is in 1 Kings vi. 23. We are there 
 told of Solomon, that “ within the oracle he made 
 two Cherubim of olive tree, each ten cubits high, 
 and five cubits was the one wing of the Cherub, 
 and five cubits the other wing of the Cherub; from 
 the uttermost part of one wing unto the uttermost 
 part of the other were ten cubits,’ 5 etc. Notice here 
 the difference between these Cherubim of Solomon 
 and those of Moses. The purpose of both was the 
 same. Their position was the same, and their 
 shape, so far as we can gather it, was the same. 
 But Solomon’s Cherubim were made of olive wood 
 overlaid with gold, whereas those of Moses were 
 of solid gold. The question arises—were these 
 Solomonic Cherubim substitutes for those of Moses, 
 or were they additions to them ? If they were 
 substitutes, then the further question arises— 
 what became of the original two ? If they were 
 additions, then, contrary to the general opinion, 
 were there four Cherubim, altogether, above the ark ? 
 Who can answer these questions ? 
 
 All we can do is to form to ourselves a dim 
 mental picture of strange winged figures standing in 
 the impenetrable darkness of the Holy of Holies— 
 their outstretched golden pinions at once forming, 
 
The Cherubim. 
 
 11 
 
 as it were, a throne for the cloud of the Shekinah 
 glory, and a canopy for the mercy-seat, and their 
 wistful, earnest faces gazing continually and solemnly 
 downwards, as if in rapt, ecstatic, worshipful con¬ 
 templation of the mysteries that slumbered beneath 
 them. There the High Priest left them when the 
 annual day of atonement was over; and there, when 
 a year had sped, he found them again when he 
 entered God’s shrine. 
 
 Did it ever strike you as singular, that the same 
 God whom we find in the twentieth chapter of 
 Exodus laying down so solemnly and positively as 
 the second commandment of His Decalogue the 
 injunction—“Thou shalt not make unto thee any 
 graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in 
 heaven above or in the earth beneath,” only five 
 chapters further on is Himself found commanding 
 the making of these graven images ? Certainly it 
 appears, at the first blush of the matter, strange 
 that He should. Yet such is the fact, explain it as 
 we may. What are we to say of it ? Josephus 
 blames Solomon for making the brazen sea in the 
 Temple, with its oxen supporting it, on the ground 
 that in placing these figures of animals there he 
 was violating the second Commandment. But here 
 we have Bezaleel and Aholiab, by express and direct 
 command of God, making the Cherubim and placing 
 them in the Tabernacle. 
 
 The explanation surely is, that the second Com¬ 
 mandment is to be taken as a whole, like any other 
 
78 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 of the ten. We are not to read its opening clauses, 
 “ Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, 
 or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, 
 or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the 
 water under the earth,” and then stop. The Com¬ 
 mandment does not convey its meaning unless we 
 take in what follows, and connect with the beginning 
 the ending words, “ Thou shalt not bow down thyself 
 to them, nor serve them.” Its object is not to repress 
 the legitimate exercise of the sculptor’s or painter’s 
 art, but to forbid the application of that art to the 
 promotion of an idolatrous worship. We ourselves 
 always practically take the Commandment with limi¬ 
 tations. Eather, to speak more correctly, we take 
 it as a whole. We decorate the walls of our rooms 
 with many a “ likeness ” of things in heaven and 
 things on earth. We fill our albums with similar 
 “ likenesses,” and we find no fault with the sculptor for 
 carving his statues in marble or casting them in bronze. 
 We have no feeling that in doing any of these things 
 we are violating the second or any other Command¬ 
 ment, seeing we do not “ bow down to them nor serve 
 them.” Yes, you say, but we do not place these 
 pictures or statues in the house of God, and the 
 mystery is that here we have the Most High ordering 
 them to be placed there. But will any one say 
 precisely how far this distinction between God’s house 
 and our own is to be legitimately pressed ? Your 
 drawing-room is the house of God when you gather 
 in it round God’s feet at the family altar,—as truly 
 
The Cherubim. 
 
 79 
 
 the house of God as ever was the stateliest cathedral 
 “ with long-drawn aisle and fretted vault.” Yet, on the 
 walls of your drawing-room are these “likenesses,” 
 and all about it are these “images.” The Shorter 
 Catechism of the Westminster Divines catches here, 
 evidently, the meaning and the spirit of the second 
 Commandment: “ The second Commandment for- 
 
 biddeth the worshipping of God by images,” — not 
 the making of images,—“ or any other way not 
 appointed in His Word.” It was to guard His worship 
 that God spake that Commandment; and, for the same 
 reason, when He placed the Cherubim in His house, 
 to show that they were not placed there as objects of 
 worship, He directed them to be placed where the 
 people and ordinary priests never saw them, and 
 caused them to be represented in an attitude of con¬ 
 stant worship, their heads bent reverently down, and 
 their faces averted from His symbolic presence and 
 fixed on the lid which covered the ark. There is no 
 contradiction here, or anywhere, between God’s Word 
 and His actions. In this instance we can plainly 
 see this for ourselves; and if, at any time, in any 
 other case, we cannot see it, we may be very sure 
 that the God of truth never yet contradicted Him¬ 
 self, and never will. 
 
 There is only one other passage in the Bible in 
 which the Cherubim are plainly brought before us. 
 It is Itev. iv. 6. John there tells us that “ before 
 the throne there was a sea of glass like unto 
 crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round 
 
80 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before 
 and behind. And the first beast was like a lion, and 
 the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had 
 a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a 
 flying eagle. And the four beasts had each of them 
 six wings about him: and they were full of eyes 
 within: and they rest not day and night, saying, 
 Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, 
 and is, and is to come ! ” One word in this descrip¬ 
 tion the Eevised Version has very properly altered. 
 Instead of “ beasts ” it reads “ living creatures,” the 
 true translation. Now these creatures are not here 
 expressly called Cherubim. But the account given 
 of them leaves no manner of doubt that it is the 
 Cherubim that are spoken of. Their number is the 
 same, and their form; and here, as in Ezekiel, we 
 have prominence given to that strange characteristic, 
 the number of their eyes. They figure subsequently 
 in the Book of Revelation, in the unfolding of the 
 great apocalyptic drama. But there is no further 
 description of them. This is the last that is given 
 us in the entire Bible. 
 
 We have now taken a rapid glance at the 
 Scripture references to the Cherubim. What have 
 we gained by it ? In general this—that we now 
 understand that there are in heaven four great 
 creatures, higher than all the rest that are there, 
 endowed with greater power and loftier faculties, 
 who stand nearest to the throne of the Eternal. 
 Do not suppose that in reality their form is like 
 
The Cherubim. 
 
 81 
 
 that pictured by Ezekiel or John. Do not, in 
 picturing them to yourselves, imagine heads of lion, 
 or eagle, or ox, or man. Do not think that, when 
 you are admitted into heaven, you will see those 
 terrible wheels incessantly revolving, or those strange 
 eyes glancing out from beneath incessantly flying 
 wings. In reading these descriptions we are to 
 recollect that we are reading symbolical accounts. 
 You do not expect to find in heaven streets literally 
 paved with gold, or to see seas of literal glass, or 
 gates of real pearl, such as are spoken of in the 
 Book of Bevelation. So with the Cherubim. The 
 things of heaven are unspeakable. They cannot be 
 put into human language. All that can be done 
 to describe them to us is to give us emblems, which, 
 put together and rightly understood, furnish us with 
 some conception of them—the best conception that 
 can be conveyed to human minds. What is meant 
 by the inspired descriptions of the Cherubim is 
 evidently this—they have the strength and majesty 
 of the lion, the keen vision and swift flight of the 
 eagle, the patient obedience and sturdy stedfastness 
 of the ox, all conjoined to the keenness of the 
 human intellect. These ideas are intensified by the 
 multitudes of eyes and hands and wheels, the whole 
 description, when pieced together, giving the idea of 
 beings perfectly framed, so as to be worthy to be 
 placed nearest God, at once ready to do His highest 
 errands, and worthy, above all others, to stand, as 
 His lords-in-waiting, next His throne. 
 
 F 
 
82 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 There has been endless discussion about the nature 
 and functions of the Cherubim. Many opinions on 
 
 i 
 
 the subject we may at once dismiss as baseless. 
 Some have said that they represent the four cardinal 
 virtues (wisdom, justice, temperance, and fortitude); 
 others, that they are symbols of the four elements 
 (earth, air, fire, and water); others, that they repre¬ 
 sent the four great monarchies of ancient times, or 
 the four chief passions (joy, hope, grief, and fear). 
 Still more strangely, some have held that they are 
 symbols of the four evangelists, or the four major 
 prophets, or the four chief ages of the world, or the 
 four archangels! Others say that they represent 
 God’s fourfold covenant with man in Christ, Christ 
 being the man represented by the human face, His 
 sacrifice being typified in the ox, His resurrection 
 in the lion, and His ascension in the eagle! That 
 mischievous tendency to spiritualize everything, which 
 has wrought such unspeakable damage to biblical 
 exposition, has, in fact, run riot over the Cherubim. 
 The fancies it has indulged about them are endless. 
 Those that we have specified are only worth men¬ 
 tioning as illustrations of the follies to which men 
 descend, when, leaving the sure ground of God’s 
 Word, they allow themselves to speculate unchecked. 
 There is not a shred of foundation for any one of 
 the interpretations now alluded to. They are simply 
 fantasies, and nothing more. 
 
 Equally untenable are other ideas of the Cherubim, 
 which have obtained favour with certain sober-minded 
 
The Cherubim. 
 
 83 
 
 expositors of Scripture. They have, for instance, 
 been declared to be symbols of God or of the 
 attributes of God. But the language of the Bible 
 is surely sufficient to disprove this theory. God 
 is said there to dwell “ between the Cherubim.” 
 Ezekiel tells us that they are “ under the God of 
 Israel” (x. 20). In the Book of Revelation we 
 find them worshipping God. Can God worship 
 God, or dwell under or between God ? But there is 
 one special disproof of the idea that the Cherubim 
 are symbols of the Divine Being. The Jews were 
 expressly forbidden to make any image of God. 
 We need not enter into the reasons of this prohibi¬ 
 tion. The fact is undeniable, and it renders the 
 idea that the Cherubim are representations of Him 
 quite untenable. Whatever they are, this much is 
 clear, that they are created beings, perfectly distinct 
 from the Deity. 
 
 Yet they are not ordinary Angels. A marked 
 and clear distinction is always drawn between them 
 and Angels. In Revelation (vii. 11) we read that 
 all the Angels “ stood round about the throne and 
 about the four living creatures,” whom we have 
 seen to be the Cherubim—the Cherubim forming 
 a separate and inner circle, and the Angels an outer 
 circle of different beings. The Cherubim, indeed, 
 are always represented as occupying this position, a 
 different position from Angels, one that we never 
 find the latter assuming. They are always next 
 the throne of God. Then we read of only four 
 
84 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 Cherubim; but the Angels are “ ten thousand times 
 ten thousand, and thousands of thousands.” No 
 doubt, the Cherubim to some extent partake of the 
 angelic nature. They are certainly created beings, 
 as are the Angels. They are servants of God like 
 the Angels. But, if we rightly divide the Word of 
 Truth, we must see that there is a marked and 
 deep distinction drawn between the two orders of 
 beings, which we will only land ourselves in con¬ 
 fusion and contradiction if we disregard. 
 
 Quite as certain is it that the Cherubim are not 
 symbols of the redeemed. The idea that they are 
 is founded on one solitary passage of Scripture 
 (Rev. v. 9), where it is said—“ They sing a new 
 song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the Book, 
 and to open the seals thereof: for Thou wast slain, 
 and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood, out 
 of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and 
 nation.” This seems, indeed, a very plain indica¬ 
 tion that the Cherubim are representatives of saved 
 souls. Yet it is most difficult to imagine how they 
 can be so. They existed long before man was 
 redeemed. They stood on the east of Eden at a 
 time when they could not possibly belong to, or 
 represent, a body not then in existence. What are 
 we to say about the matter ? The Revised Version 
 comes to our help here again, as it so often does. 
 We open the passage there, and we read this very 
 different statement from that found in the Authorized 
 Version—“ For Thou wast slain, and didst purchase 
 
The Cherubim. 
 
 85 
 
 unto God with Thy blood men of every kindred, and 
 tongue, and people, and nation.” The “ us,” it will 
 be seen, is gone from the verse. Long before the 
 inception of the work of the revisers, it had been 
 seen that that word should not be there. The Greek 
 term of which it is the translation is not found in 
 the most ancient manuscripts. It must therefore 
 disappear from the passage, and with it disappears 
 also the only argument for believing that the 
 Cherubim are representatives of redeemed souls. 
 
 If we take the plain statements of the Bible in 
 their plain meaning, I think we need not be in 
 much doubt as to who and what the Cherubim 
 are. They are simply Ministers of the Presence. 
 To fit them for this exalted office they are the 
 highest developments of creaturehood. In the 
 opinion of the ancients, the lion was the king of 
 beasts, the eagle the king of birds, the ox of cattle, 
 and man the lord of all. So, when the Almighty 
 would give us such an idea of His chief ministers 
 and nearest attendants, as should best represent to 
 us what they are, He combines, not in reality but in 
 symbolic vision, the courage of the lion, the strength 
 of the ox, the swiftness and keen vision of the eagle, 
 with the intelligence of man. These qualities are 
 intensified by the many eyes, and hands, and wheels 
 which are conjoined in the picture, so as to impress 
 upon us with the utmost clearness and vividness the 
 idea that the great Supreme has about Him beings 
 as willing as they are able to speed on His highest 
 
86 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 and most difficult errands, whether of mercy or of 
 vengeance, while they are also worthy in the highest 
 degree, so far as created beings can he worthy, to 
 stand next His throne. 
 
 In the sixth chapter of Isaiah there is a striking 
 description of a scene which, as we shall see imme¬ 
 diately, has much to do with the subject we are 
 considering. The passage is as follows: “ In the 
 year that King Uzziah died I saw also the Lord 
 sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and His 
 train filled the temple. Above it stood the Seraphim : 
 each one had six wings; with twain he covered his 
 face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with 
 twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and 
 said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the 
 whole earth is full of His glory. And the posts of 
 the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and 
 the house was filled with smoke ” (Isa. vi. 1—4). 
 This passage is remarkable as the only one in the 
 Bible in which the Seraphim are mentioned by 
 name. But the explanation of this circumstance, 
 that we have but this one reference to them in 
 Scripture, seems to me to be plain. It is, that the 
 Seraphim are simply the Cherubim called by another 
 name. Why do I say so ? First, their name 
 suggests the thought. The word Seraphim means 
 “ burning ones,” and we have seen how fire in 
 various forms, such as burning coals, lamps, etc., is 
 associated with the Cherubim. Next, the position 
 which they are represented as occupying is the 
 
The Cherubim. 
 
 87 
 
 same as that assigned in Scripture to the Cherubim. 
 The office of the Cherubim is to be the personal 
 attendants of the Deity; and we have only to 
 glance at the scene described by Isaiah to see that 
 that is the office also discharged by the Seraphim. 
 That reverential cry also—“ Holy, holy, holy is the 
 Lord of hosts ! ”—reminds us vividly of the worship 
 of the Cherubim as described in the Book of Revela¬ 
 tion. True, Isaiah says that the Seraphim had each 
 six wings, whereas Ezekiel’s Cherubim had but four. 
 No one, however, who is familiar with biblical 
 symbolism will lay any stress on that difference. 
 The Cherubim in the Tabernacle and the Temple 
 had only two wings each, and those mentioned in 
 the Book of Revelation had six, the same number 
 as the Seraphim here. We are to remember that 
 these things were seen in visions, and that, as has 
 been already explained, these wings, and eyes, and 
 wheels are emblems of certain qualities and attributes, 
 not realities themselves. The visions may differ in 
 certain particulars and yet be visions of the same 
 beings, just as two painters may paint ideal portraits 
 of the same person, both correct, yet quite different 
 from each other. Therefore we need attach no 
 importance to such differences in the accounts of 
 these beings. It seems plain that, putting together 
 what we are told of the Cherubim and the Seraphim, 
 comparing the visions of Ezekiel and John with those 
 of Isaiah, we can come to no other conclusion but 
 that these are two different names for the same beings. 
 
88 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 There is another curious point to be noticed, 
 which we may possibly connect also with these 
 strange intelligences. In the Old Testament we 
 read of the Teraphim. The word occurs half a 
 dozen times in our Authorized Version, 1 but oftener 
 in the original. The images which Eachel stole 
 (Gen. xxxi. 19) were Teraphim, and the image 
 which Michal laid in the bed to deceive Saul’s 
 messengers is rendered “ the Teraphim ” in the 
 Revised Version. These Teraphim were images, 
 which in those early ages were regarded with 
 superstitious veneration—why, it is difficult exactly 
 to say. Now, the word Teraphim differs from the 
 word Seraphim by but a single letter. As a matter 
 of fact, it is simply the Aramaic form of the same 
 word. If this be so, and if the Seraphim are simply 
 the Cherubim under another name, then would it 
 not appear that these Teraphim, which were so 
 frequently found in Jewish houses, were neither 
 more nor less than portable models of the Cherubim ? 
 We have already noted as a strange thing that 
 Moses was told by God to make Cherubim for the 
 Tabernacle, but not told of what shape to make 
 them. We argued that the reason why no descrip¬ 
 tion of them was given must have been that their 
 form was so familiar and generally known as to 
 need no description. Now, if, as some say, the 
 Cherubim which were placed at the east of the 
 garden of Eden remained there till the Flood—if, 
 
 1 Judg, xvii. 5, xviii, 14, xviii. 17, xviii. 18, xviii. 20 ; Hos. iii. 4. 
 
The Cherubim. 
 
 89 
 
 as there appears to be some reason for believing, 
 the men of those early days worshipped before them 
 as the ordinary place of their religious service and 
 the place of the revealed presence of Jehovah, then 
 we can easily understand why and how they acquired 
 this familiarity which is thus taken for granted in 
 the sacred narrative, and we can also easily under¬ 
 stand how rude images of these mysterious beings 
 should, in a primitive age, when there was neither 
 Bible nor Temple to guide men’s religious beliefs, 
 become a kind of charms or household gods. Such 
 a supposition, at all events, makes much clear in the 
 earlier books of Scripture which we will otherwise 
 have great difficulty in comprehending. 
 
 What an impression of the majesty of God is 
 given us by the splendour and magnificence of the 
 Cherubim! History tells us of a great French 
 preacher who, officiating before Louis XIV., produced 
 a never-to-be-forgotten impression by the utterance 
 of the one sentence—“ God alone is great! ” Look 
 at the Cherubim! Consider that, mighty and won¬ 
 derful beings as they are, they are but servants of 
 God, and may you not gain some conception of 
 what a great God He must be! If the servants 
 are so mighty and magnificent, what is the King 
 Himself! Yes, surely God alone is great! 
 
CHAPTER Y. 
 
 €t)f Angels. 
 
 91 
 

CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE ANGELS. 
 
 IVT EXT in order, a topic as full of interest as of 
 comfort falls to be considered—the heavenly 
 Angels. We are to endeavour to learn what Holy 
 Writ teaches us about them. 
 
 Speaking in general, we find that there is a body 
 of spiritual beings in heaven, and on earth, and con¬ 
 stantly flitting between, called Angels. The name 
 is significant, and itself tells us much about them. 
 They are Angels—messengers. Their business is to 
 fly continually on the errands of God. They are 
 spirits, but created spirits. When they were created, 
 we cannot tell. But we know that it was at all 
 events before the creation of the world, for we read 
 that they were then already in existence. When 
 Creation took place, “ the morning stars sang to¬ 
 gether, and all the sons of God shouted for joy ” 
 (Job xxxviii. 7)—the Angels being clearly meant. 
 But, though they had a beginning, they will have no 
 end. “ Neither can they die any more/’ says our 
 Lord of the people of the resurrection, “ but are 
 
 93 
 
94 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 \^ 
 
 equal unto the Angels” (Luke xx. 36), who, there¬ 
 fore, are never to die. 
 
 Now, when we say that the Angels are spirits, 
 what is meant is clear. I do not know, however, 
 that this term necessarily implies that they are 
 incorporeal. It is true that “ a spirit hath not flesh 
 and hones.” But there may be other kinds of bodies 
 besides those of flesh and bones. Indeed, Paul tells 
 us plainly that there are “ celestial bodies ” as well 
 as “ bodies terrestrial,” and he draws a marked dis¬ 
 tinction between two other kinds of bodies—the 
 natural body and the spiritual body. This earth 
 once saw both the natural body and the spiritual 
 body in the person of the same Being. Por over 
 thirty-three years our blessed Lord wore an ordinary 
 human body, a body that hungered, and thirsted, and 
 was weary, and suffered, and at last died. But 
 when He rose from the grave, though He rose with 
 the same body, it was the same body wondrously 
 changed; and the body, to the possession of which 
 we look forward, is one that shall be made “ like 
 unto His own glorious body.” For “there is a 
 natural body, and there is a spiritual body.” It is 
 clear, therefore, that there are several kinds of bodies. 
 The Council of Nice held that Angels have bodies, 
 not composed, however, of flesh like ours, but of 
 ether or light. The Angel who rolled away the 
 stone from the sepulchre is described in such a way 
 as at least to suggest that he had a body of some 
 kind. “ His countenance was like lightning, and 
 
The Angels. 
 
 95 
 
 his raiment white as snow ” (Matt, xxviii. 3). It 
 would be going beyond the evidence to assert posi¬ 
 tively that Angels have bodies. But it ought to be 
 said that the fact of their being spiritual beings does 
 not necessarily prevent their having them. It is 
 certain that every time they have appeared on earth 
 they seem to have appeared with plainly visible 
 bodies, and no intimation is given to the reader that 
 this is not their usual condition. Moreover, those 
 bodies, in all cases which are described to us, seem 
 to have been of the form of human bodies. The 
 Angels which appeared to Abraham are called “ these 
 men,” and those which came to Lot in Sodom are 
 called “ men.” We read of “ the man Gabriel ” in 
 Daniel. In Joseph’s garden “ two men appeared in 
 shining garments; ” and at the Ascension there were 
 “ two men in white apparel.” There is certainly 
 nothing in the Bible to indicate that Angels have not 
 bodies, but much which possibly tends the other way. 
 
 However this may be, their appearance is always 
 represented in Scripture as very glorious. Bright¬ 
 ness and splendour, we are given to understand, are 
 their constant attributes. They seem also to be 
 gifted with perpetual youth. In Christ’s sepulchre 
 there was “ a young man sitting.” With us, as age 
 advances, it ploughs its furrows in the face, the gait 
 becomes feeble, and the mind less able for its work. 
 It is never so with the Angels. They grow older, 
 but “ time writes no wrinkle on their azure brow.” 
 
 Always, also, in the Bible they are represented as 
 
96 
 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 “clothed in white.” The saints in the Book of 
 Revelation are clad in white robes. So are the 
 Angels. White would seem to he the heavenly 
 colour. At the Transfiguration, Christ’s garments 
 became “ white and glistering,” “ so as no fuller on 
 earth can white them; ” and the Angels and all the 
 other inhabitants of heaven are uniformly represented 
 as attired in the same hue. 
 
 The sex of the Angels is also noticeable. We 
 never read of female Angels in Scripture. They are 
 always styled men, young men, and the names given 
 to them are masculine names—Gabriel, Michael, and 
 so on. Painters and sculptors may represent female 
 Angels, but it is certain that we read of none in 
 Scripture. 
 
 Again, most people imagine Angels as having 
 wings. Indeed, wings seem inseparable from the 
 conventional idea of an Angel. Will you he sur¬ 
 prised to be told that there is no trace in Scripture 
 of anything of the kind ? You wdll perhaps tell me 
 of Daniel’s statement about “ the man Gabriel being 
 caused to fly very swiftly” (Dan. ix. 21); but the 
 word in the original gives no indication of such a 
 mode of flight as we understand when we speak of 
 wings. It simply means to travel very speedily, 
 without reference to the mode by which the speed 
 is attained. Some one else may recall the passage in 
 the Book of Revelation about the “ angel flying in 
 the midst of heaven.” But the same remark applies 
 to this place. There is no mention of wings; and 
 
The Angels . 
 
 97 
 
 even if they were mentioned in such a book as 
 the Apocalypse, do you think that we should there¬ 
 fore necessarily conclude that wings were literally 
 possessed ? When we read of “ a woman clothed 
 with the sun,” do we take the description as literal ? 
 The fact is, as we said when speaking of the Cheru¬ 
 bim, art and Scripture are not unfrequently com¬ 
 pletely at variance, even when the former is dealing 
 with the latter. Art seems to take its conceptions 
 from the poets and not from the Bible. You may 
 cherish, if you like, the old superstition of angelic 
 pinions; but do not, if you please, base it on Scrip¬ 
 ture. To me it is far pleasanter to think of them as 
 having a form liker my own; but, whether that be 
 so or not, if you wish to keep your ideas in line with 
 the Bible, you must search deeper than I have done 
 before you give wings to the Angels. 
 
 It is more important, however, to think of the 
 attributes of the Angels, and there is no doubt and 
 no difficulty as to them. We speak here, it is of 
 course to be remembered, only of the heavenly 
 Angels. They are holy, unspeakably holy. No 
 impure thought ever crosses their minds. No sin 
 finds harbourage in their breasts. No evil act ever 
 stains their hands. But, all the while, they are 
 fallible. Theirs is not the holiness of God, which 
 cannot change. Some of them once lost their good¬ 
 ness, and fell from their first estate, as man fell from 
 his. Is it not wonderful to think that Satan was 
 
 once a holy Angel ? It strikes one with awe to 
 
 G 
 

 — 
 
 98 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 know that there was a time when all those unutter¬ 
 ably wicked beings whose abode is now in hell, 
 whose delight is in wickedness, who gloat over the 
 ruin of souls, stood amid the shining throng of 
 heaven, and hymned the praise of the Creator in 
 strains as loud as any of the rest. Yet such is the 
 fact. We cannot tell when that terrible scene 
 occurred, which we know did once occur, when there 
 was a Fall in heaven, as afterwards there was a 
 Fall on earth. It was before the Fall of man, we 
 know, for it was one of the Angels who had fallen 
 that tempted man to his Fall. The point for us 
 tremblingly to ponder is, that all created beings, 
 from highest to lowest, are fallible. There is One 
 infallible in all the universe, only One. 
 
 The Angels have, of course, none of the essential 
 attributes of the Divine Being. They are not 
 infinite. They are not eternal, for though they 
 never die, they had a beginning. That they are not 
 unchangeable, the fall of Satan and the others is 
 enough to prove. They are not omniscient, nor 
 omnipresent, nor omnipotent. They cannot create. 
 They cannot alter the laws of God. They are very 
 lofty beings, but we must draw a marked distinction 
 between them and the Loftiest. We have been made 
 a little lower than they, but they are a great deal 
 lower than God. The minutest insect that flits in 
 the sun of a summer’s day is nearer to us than they 
 are to God. They are not to be worshipped. This 
 is clear from Scripture. When Manoah would have 
 
 i 
 
The Angels. 
 
 99 
 
 bowed before one of them, he was told—“ If thou 
 wilt offer a burnt-offering, thou must offer it unto 
 the Lord” (Judg. xiii. 16). John, too, would twice 
 have worshipped an Angel. But his homage would 
 not be received. “ See thou do it not,” he was told; 
 “ I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren that 
 have the testimony of Jesus: worship God ” (Rev. 
 xix. 10). “ Let no man,” says Paul, “ beguile you 
 
 in a voluntary humility and worshipping of Angels ” 
 (Col. ii. 18). Oh, no! when we would worship, we 
 must press through and beyond Angels and Saints and 
 Cherubim, never staying till we come to the Throne 
 itself. They all worship Him that sits there, and 
 Him only. “ To Thee Cherubim and Seraphim con¬ 
 tinually do cry. To Thee all Angels cry aloud; ” and 
 joining with them in worship, we cry to them— 
 “ Bless ye the Lord, ye His Angels, that excel in 
 strength, that do His commandments, hearkening 
 unto the voice of His word.” We dare no more 
 indulge in angelolatry than in idolatry. The worship 
 and the glory are due to God alone. 
 
 There are gradations of rank among the Angels. 
 At their head are Archangels, and shading away 
 from them are lower and lower orders. Some sup¬ 
 pose that there is but one Archangel, and that he is 
 Christ. And certainly we never read distinctly of 
 Archangels. In Scripture the word is always in the 
 singular number,—the Archangel. It is solely a New 
 Testament word, and there it only occurs twice, once 
 in that sublime passage which has cheered so many 
 

 100 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 hearts by the grave-side, “ The Lord Himself shall 
 descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of 
 the Archangel, and with the trump of God ” (1 
 Thess. iv. 16); and again in the Epistle of Jude, in 
 that mysterious statement which tells us of Michael 
 the Archangel contending with the devil about the 
 body of Moses (Jude 9). Although, however, the 
 word Archangel is not found in the Old Testament, 
 we meet this same Michael in the Book of Daniel. 
 There appears to be no good reason for identifying 
 him with our blessed Lord. There is not even a 
 hint to that effect in the Bible, and the language of 
 the passage in the First Epistle to the Thessalonians 
 seems to imply the contrary. No! We are lower 
 than the Angels, but Christ is higher even than the 
 Archangels; and I cannot doubt that to both Angels 
 and Archangels the command equally applies—“ Let 
 all the Angels of God worship Him! ” 
 
 The holy Angels are very numerous. 
 
 “ Millions of spiritual creatures walk this earth unseen, 
 
 Both when we sleep and when we wake.” 
 
 We read in Scripture of “ an innumerable company 
 of Angels.” They are so numerous that words fail 
 the sacred writers when they would describe their 
 number. There are “ thousands of thousands, and 
 ten thousand times ten thousand” of them. I do 
 not doubt that the air all round us teems with 
 Angels. They are, also, not only very numerous, 
 but immensely strong. They “ excel in strength.” 
 Then we know that their life is serenely and con- 
 
The Angels . 
 
 101 
 
 stantly happy. They “ do always behold the face of 
 my Father who is in heaven.” And their conformity 
 to God’s will is complete. Morning and night, and 
 every other time we say the prayer which our Lord 
 has taught us, we are reminded of this by the words, 
 “ Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” To 
 them their duty to God is their pleasure, and their 
 pleasure their duty. Our fallen nature is “ enmity 
 against God,” and often, wdien we obey Him, it 
 is grudgingly. We regard God as a hard master. 
 We count Him “ an austere man,” reaping where 
 He did not sow, and gathering where He had not 
 strewed. But it is not so above. Conformity to 
 God’s will is the Angels’ delight. Ho heavenly 
 Angel is ever represented by either of the two sons 
 in Christ’s parable. They neither say they go on 
 God’s business, and go not; nor do they refuse to 
 go, and afterwards repent. In that perfect obedi¬ 
 ence, that complete harmony, that entire oneness 
 between their will and God’s, we see a picture alike 
 of what we aim at on earth and what we hope for 
 in heaven. 
 
 What do the Angels do ? One might almost 
 reply — What do they not do ? They are the 
 servants of God, waiting to do His bidding, and, 
 consequently, wherever you find God acting, there 
 you may be sure the Angels are at work. Look 
 over the Bible, and you find them everywhere and 
 continually busy. Begin at the beginning—they 
 were at Creation. Go to the end of the world, and 
 
102 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 V-' 
 
 you hear the Archangel’s trump. As at these first 
 and last scenes, so is it all the way between. We 
 have Angels appearing to Abraham, to Hagar, to 
 Jacob, to Lot, to Balaam, to Manoah, to Gideon, to 
 Elijah, to David. The Law at Sinai was given “ by 
 dispositions of Angels; ” the birth of Christ was 
 announced by them; His sufferings were alleviated 
 by their ministrations; the stone was rolled away 
 from His tomb by one of them; His ascension 
 announced by others. You cannot read the Bible 
 without being struck with the large part which they 
 play in it, and without being convinced that the 
 affairs of the Church and the world have been and 
 are still largely administered by them, of course 
 under the supreme direction of God. They do not 
 now appear visibly to us, as they sometimes did in 
 the olden days. But their ministrations are none 
 the less real on that account. 
 
 One special duty which they evidently discharge 
 is the taking care of God’s people. Over and over 
 again we are assured of this in Holy Scripture. 
 “ The Angel of the Lord encampeth round about 
 them that fear Him, and delivereth them ” (Ps. 
 xxxiv. 7). It is a blessed thought that, whether we 
 wake or sleep, they are continually keeping watch 
 and ward over us. “ He shall give His Angels 
 charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways. 
 They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou 
 dash thy foot against a stone” (Ps. xci. 11). “In 
 all thy ways ”—the way of sorrow or the way of 
 
The Angels. 
 
 103 
 
 joy, the rough way or the pleasant way—they attend 
 thee, 0 Christian ! “ Are they not all ministering 
 
 spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be 
 heirs of salvation?” (Heb. i. 14). This is their 
 special duty. They ministered to Christ, and they 
 minister to Christ’s people. Examples of this 
 ministration are thickly strewn over the Bible. 
 They ministered to Abraham, to Elijah, to Elisha, to 
 Daniel, to Joseph of Nazareth, to Zacharias, to the 
 Virgin Mary, to Cornelius, to Peter, to Philip, to 
 Paul. One has only to read the biographies of these 
 ancient worthies to have illustrated to him the large 
 part which they play in human affairs. Edmund 
 Spenser might well write,— 
 
 “ Oh, the exceeding grace 
 Of highest God, that loves His creatures so, 
 
 And all His works with mercy doth embrace, 
 
 That blessed Angels He sends to and fro 
 To serve us wicked men, to serve His wicked foe! 
 
 How oft do they their silver bowers leave 
 To come to succour us that succour want! 
 
 How oft do they with golden pinions cleave 
 The flitting skies, like flying pursuivant, 
 
 Against foul fiends to aid us militant! 
 
 They for us fight, they watch and duly ward, 
 
 And their bright squadrons round about us plant; 
 
 And all for love and nothing for reward : 
 
 Oh, why should heavenly God to man have such 
 regard ? ” 
 
 Some maintain that each individual believer has 
 his own guardian Angel. They base this view on 
 such a passage as—“ Take heed that ye despise not 
 one of these little ones: for I say unto you, That in 
 heaven their Angels do always behold the face of 
 
104 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 my Father which is in heaven” (Matt, xviii. 10). 
 Some quote also in favour of this doctrine the story 
 of Bhoda, who, when Peter came knocking to the 
 door of her mistress, was told by those in the 
 house, “It is his Angel” (Acts xii. 15). This 
 latter passage, however, cannot he taken as lending 
 much authority to the view. The prevailing opinion 
 in Peter’s day may have been that every one has a 
 guardian Angel; but that prevailing opinion carries 
 no more weight with it than any popular idea now- 
 a-days on this or any other subject. We need a 
 firmer foundation on which to base our belief than 
 prevailing opinions. Besides, it is open to question 
 whether the expression, “ It is his Angel,” does not 
 mean Peter’s ghost, the idea in Mary’s house at 
 the time being that he was dead. The passage 
 in Matthew is stronger and more pertinent, and 
 certainly teaches, not only that children, but all 
 God’s little ones, the babes of the spiritual kingdom, 
 enjoy the care of guardian Angels. Many a time 
 people have wondered how children escape the many 
 perils of childhood. Ignorant of danger, they rush 
 heedlessly into it. They know no fear. They take 
 no precaution. Yet they escape. As with children, 
 so with babes of an older growth. May not the 
 reason be that angelic hands support and guide them? 
 
 This doctrine of angelic tutelage is indeed most 
 comfortable in all views of it. It has been too 
 much neglected. In our reaction from the angel- 
 olatry of Bomanism we have rushed into the 
 
The Angels. 
 
 105 
 
 opposite extreme, and have too often ignored alto¬ 
 gether the existence and the care of onr heavenly 
 guardians. Yet surely it is a truth on which we may 
 well stay ourselves. 
 
 It has been held by some that particular Angels 
 have been given the charge of particular countries. 
 In the Book of Daniel we read of Michael, “ the 
 great prince which standeth for the children of thy 
 people; ” and similarly we are told of the princes of 
 Persia and Greece. Dr. Charles Hodge declares 
 that there is nothing in this doctrine out of analogy 
 with the clear teaching of Scripture. Nor is there. 
 And certainly it is a great thought that each nation 
 should have its special angelic sentinel. It is at 
 least a pleasing idea that Britain may have, in fact 
 and not in fancy or poetic language, her guardian 
 Angel, watching over her destinies, and restraining 
 and conquering her enemies. How much better 
 such guardianship than all the forts which she 
 could build along her coasts, or all the ironclads that 
 she could muster in the Channel! Men have 
 sometimes wondered at the strange opportuneness 
 of the wind three hundred years ago which scattered 
 and destroyed the so-called invincible Armada, by 
 which Philip of Spain expected to reduce us to the 
 sway of Rome. What if we are to see in that 
 fierce tempest the work of the Angel to whom our 
 guardianship has been committed, and who “rideth 
 upon the wings of the wind ” ? We have wondered, 
 again, at that other wind, which a hundred years 
 
106 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 later rose so timeously to waft to our shores from 
 Holland the ships which bore William of Orange to 
 
 our deliverance. What if it be another example of 
 
 \ 
 
 the same ? 
 
 It is not among the outer elements only, however, 
 that the Angels operate. They act on our minds. 
 It is a most interesting and moving thought that 
 they come within us—into our souls ; that they speak 
 to us; that they influence us for good; that they 
 suggest to us what we should do, and what we should 
 not do. Alas ! there is a dark side to this comfort¬ 
 able truth. If the holy Angels are ever inciting our 
 minds towards good, the evil emissaries of the Evil 
 One are as persistently and incessantly enticing us 
 to evil. 
 
 ‘ ‘ Man hath two attendant Angels 
 Ever with him as he strays.” 
 
 You have sometimes been puzzled how to account 
 for good impulses which have occurred to you, 
 perhaps with startling suddenness, and, as far as 
 you could see, without effort on your part. What if 
 they are the work of your attendant Angel, as truly 
 as the wicked suggestions which you have loathed, 
 and against which you have struggled, are the doing 
 of the evil emissaries of the Wicked One ? 
 
 Angels seem to be specially present in the House 
 of Prayer. We know that they take a deep interest 
 in the gospel and in its progress. “ There is joy 
 among the Angels of God over one sinner that 
 repenteth.” They “ desire to look into ” the things 
 
The Angels. 
 
 107 
 
 of the kingdom of God, and we are specially told 
 that when we meet for worship they are present. 
 In that beautiful chapter of Ecclesiastes, for example, 
 which begins, “ Keep thy foot when thou goest to 
 the house of God, and be more ready to hear than 
 to give the sacrifice of fools,” we are thus admonished: 
 “ Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin; 
 neither say thou before the Angel that it was an 
 error: wherefore should God be angry at thy voice, 
 and destroy the work of thine hands ? ” (Eccles. 
 v. 6). It would seem from these words as if Angels 
 noted all our conduct and words in the house of 
 prayer. In the First Epistle to the Corinthians, 
 again, where we have so many minute directions 
 about worship, we are told that women should always 
 pray with covered head; and one reason for this 
 regulation is given us—“Eor this cause ought the 
 woman to have power on her head because of the 
 Angels” (1 Cor. xi. 10). The Eevised Version reads 
 this curious text thus : “For this cause ought the 
 woman to have a sign of authority on her head, 
 because of the Angels.” Dr. Hodge explains the 
 passage in the following way: “ The apostle had 
 asserted and proved that the woman is subordinate 
 to the man, and he had assumed as granted that 
 the veil was the conventional symbol of the man’s 
 authority. The inference is that the woman ought 
 to wear the ordinary symbol of the power of her 
 husband. As it was proper in itself, and demanded 
 by the common sense of propriety, that the woman 
 
108 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 should be veiled, it was specially proper in the 
 worshipping assemblies, for there they were in the 
 presence, not merely of men, but of Angels. It was 
 therefore not only out of deference to public senti¬ 
 ment, but from reverence to those higher intelligences, 
 that the woman should conform to all the rules of 
 decorum ” {Exposition of the First Epistle to the 
 Corinthians, in loco). What a sight we should see 
 if our eyes were suddenly opened some Sabbath day 
 to behold the angelic visitants in the place where 
 we bow in worship before God! All over us, all 
 around us, white-robed angels hovering, listening to 
 the voice of the preacher, noting the acts of the 
 hearers, watching the effects of the message delivered 
 from the pulpit, taking cognizance of the praises 
 and the prayers; and, when the service is done, 
 winging their flight back to heaven to carry the 
 tidings of the worship to the God who has been 
 worshipped! How solemn it should ever make 
 us, how circumspect, how holy in our Christian 
 assemblies, to think that they are held in such 
 an august presence! How the thought should 
 emphasize that advice of the Preacher — “ Keep 
 thy foot when thou goest to the house of God ”! 
 
 There is one epoch of our lives when, we are told, 
 the Angels play a specially important and touching 
 part in our history. At that solemn hour when the 
 soul of the believer leaves the body to go to be with 
 its God, the Angels come to take charge of it. When 
 Lazarus died, the Angels carried him into Abraham’s 
 
109 
 
 The Angels. 
 
 bosom. So is it with every believer. As you stand 
 by the bed on which he lies face to face with the 
 last enemy, you do not see the Angels. But they 
 are there. They are listening to the moans of the 
 sufferer. They are strengthening him to bear his 
 last pains. They are instilling holy thoughts into 
 his mind. They are waiting to carry him home. All 
 is silent in the room. The lights burn low. Every 
 foot moves on tiptoe. There, floating in the air, 
 or standing by the bed, are the celestial messengers, 
 —sometimes the dying eyes seem to see them,— 
 and when the last sigh has been heaved, and, with 
 the last quiver, the soul has fled from the clay 
 tabernacle, they take it in their arms, and in a 
 moment, in the twinkling of an eye, have borne it 
 to its God! 
 
 From the beginning of life to its end, from the 
 beginning of the world to its end, the Angels are 
 everywhere. 
 
/ 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ©je Saints. 
 
 Ill 
 
CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 THE SAINTS. 
 
 \\T E now come to deal with a class of the 
 ’ " inhabitants of heaven who are nearer to us 
 than any of those we have yet considered—our 
 glorified kith and kin. We have spoken of God; 
 but there is such a vast difference and distance 
 between Him and us as keeps us from knowing any 
 save “ parts of His ways.” The Cherubim and 
 Angels are, like ourselves, created beings. But they 
 are of a different order from us. We cannot, there¬ 
 fore, have very close sympathy or fellowship with 
 them. They are not bone of our bone or flesh of 
 our flesh. We may admire and wonder at them, 
 and rejoice in their good offices towards us. But 
 that is all. It is different with the Saints in heaven, 
 at whom we are now about to look. They are men 
 and women like ourselves. Some of them are our 
 nearest and dearest, from whom we parted in bitter¬ 
 ness in the death-chamber, and whom it is one of our 
 most ardent longings to meet again where parting is 
 
 unknown. Great and important, therefore, as have 
 
 H 
 
114 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 been the topics which have occupied us hitherto, 
 they must yield in interest to that which we are now 
 to consider. “ Blood is thicker than water,” and the 
 redeemed in glory are our own flesh and blood, 
 whom some of us loved in the past long ago, whom, 
 as our own, we love still, and about whom, there¬ 
 fore, we cannot but desire to know all that can be 
 known. 
 
 That the number of human beings in heaven is 
 very great, is plain beyond doubt. When John got 
 a glimpse of them, he tells us he saw “ a great 
 multitude which no man could number.” If he 
 tried to count them, he soon gave up the task as 
 hopeless. We can easily see for ourselves that the 
 number must be immense. What will it be when 
 all have got to heaven who are to be there ? Look 
 back as far as Adam, and think of all God’s servants 
 from his day till now. Think of all the children 
 who have died in infancy. From our own day, let 
 your thoughts travel forward to the last day, and the 
 last man who shall be received up into glory. We 
 do not know what time shall elapse from now till 
 then, from us to him, but from the many things 
 spoken of in prophecy which have to be accom¬ 
 plished before the final consummation of all things, 
 we have reason to believe that we are not very near 
 it yet. Consider, then, all the men and women and 
 children who are yet to be saved. Think of the 
 blessed millennial days, when “ none shall need to 
 say to his brother, Know the Lord, for all shall 
 
1 
 
 I 
 
 The Saints. 115 
 
 know Him, from the greatest to the least; ” and 
 when, therefore, every one without exception shall 
 leave this earth only to go to heaven,—add all these 
 together, from the beginning of the world to the end, 
 and certainly the multitude of those who shall be 
 inhabitants of that blessed land must be seen to be 
 indeed enormous. If any one thinks that heaven is 
 a small place for a select few, he knows little of the 
 Scriptures. It is a glorious thought that its inhabit¬ 
 ants will be a great multitude which no man can 
 number. 
 
 The composition of that multitude is something 
 wonderful to think of. John’s vision is here again 
 our guide. It tells us that there will be in it people 
 “ of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and 
 tongues ” (Rev. vii. 9). In this world nations dwell 
 apart. Each of them has its own laws, its own 
 sovereign or governing body, its own habits and 
 customs. Heaven will be cosmopolitan. In its 
 streets will mingle Englishman, Irishman, Scot, the 
 Frenchman, the German, the Swede, the Italian, the 
 Russian, and people of other colours from other 
 climes, blacks from Africa and from the cotton fields 
 of America, and red men from the primeval forests 
 and boundless prairies. And all tongues will be 
 represented. The number of languages spoken on 
 this globe is hardly yet known. Our British and 
 Foreign Bible Society has printed the Sacred Volume 
 in some two hundred and eighty, and it is increasing 
 the number every year. Every tongue that is 
 
116 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 spoken will have its representatives in the celestial 
 country. What language will be used in heaven ? 
 Can any one even guess ? Is it a mere earthly 
 thought to speak of language ? Who can tell ? 
 The old saying tells us that “ the tongues of mortals 
 are many; the immortals have but one.” What is 
 that one ? or shall there be more than one ? We 
 have no means of ascertaining, none even for 
 speculating. We only know that there shall mingle 
 in that holy society people who on earth have spoken 
 all the languages that have prevailed since the con¬ 
 fusion of tongues at Babel. 
 
 Have you ever sat down and with closed eyes 
 tried to picture to yourself the society of heaven ? 
 Think of it for a moment. Adam, we believe, is 
 there, and Eve. What will it be to behold in the 
 flesh our first parents, and to hear from their own 
 lips the story of those marvellous days of innocence 
 in Eden—the story of the Temptation—the sad tale 
 of the Eall! Noah is there. What thrilling narra¬ 
 tives he will be able to give of the days of the Flood ! 
 The venerable form of Abraham will be seen moving 
 about in the throng. Once he saw Christ’s day afar 
 off, and was glad. Now he sees Him eye to eye. 
 Moses is there, who once talked face to face with 
 God. The kingly David is there. Once he strung 
 his rude Eastern harp to Zion’s songs. Now he 
 strikes a more splendid lyre to higher music. John 
 is there, who once leaned on the Master’s breast at 
 the Holy Supper; now, we may be sure he is as near 
 
The Saints. 
 
 117 
 
 Him as he can be. And Peter and Paul, and Poly¬ 
 carp and Augustine, and Luther, and Calvin, and 
 Melanchthon, and Knox, and Melville, and Henderson, 
 and Kidley, and Latimer, and Cranmer, and Thomas 
 Chalmers, and Henry Cooke, and Charles Hodge—and 
 how many more of the Church’s worthies! What a 
 sight! The soul glows to think of it. Yes, and 
 nearer ones still and dearer ones—our own fathers 
 and mothers, our sisters and brothers, our little chil¬ 
 dren, whose eyes we closed so tearfully, whose coffins 
 we lowered so sadly into the narrow house, whose last 
 resting-places we so often visit—what will it be to 
 see them again, to enfold them in our embrace, to feel 
 their warm kisses on our cheek once more, to compare 
 experiences since the time of parting! We can but 
 imagine all this ! It is more than imagination. It 
 is sober and gladsome truth. But we can only pic¬ 
 ture it, and, ravishing as the picture is, it is nothing 
 to what the reality will be. 
 
 It has already been noticed that the Bible uniformly 
 represents the dress of heaven as white. This is not 
 only the case in such a symbolical book as Bevelation, 
 but everywhere that the subject is mentioned. The 
 angel in the Lord’s sepulchre was clothed in “a long 
 white garment” (Mark xvi. 5). John tells of “two 
 angels in white.” At the Ascension two angels 
 appeared to the disciples “ in white apparel.” When 
 sober narratives of fact like the Gospels and Acts 
 give such descriptions of the dress of the holy angels, 
 we need not hesitate to accept as literally true the 
 
118 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 account of the dress of the saints given in the Apoca¬ 
 lypse. It tells us that “ they shall walk in white/’ 
 that “ they shall be clothed in white raiment/’ that 
 “ white robes ” are given to every one of them. 
 What a dazzling sight it must be! On earth there 
 is every extreme, and every variety of dress, from 
 the “ looped and windowed ragged ness ” of the 
 street beggar to the gorgeous array of the votary 
 of fashion. In heaven all will be clothed in the 
 same spotless white. Here the garments of men are 
 often soiled with the marks of hard toil. In our 
 churches and on our streets the widow’s weeds and 
 other sable garments of mourning which tell of 
 bereavement and grief are frequently seen. But in 
 heaven there will be none of these. Wheresoever 
 the eye roams, it will see there only “ the fine white 
 linen, which is the righteousness of the saints.” 
 
 A more important point to be considered is, how 
 are our departed friends occupied in heaven, and how 
 shall we be occupied when we get there ? Some will 
 say, how can we know ? What data have we to go 
 upon ? The Bible satisfies no curiosity on the subject, 
 and where else can we go for information ? No doubt 
 there is much that we should wish to know about the 
 subject, of which we can have no knowledge. Many 
 a one has regretted that Lazarus, when he came back 
 to earth after his four days’ sojourn in the other 
 world, either told nothing of his experiences, or, if he 
 did, the record of them has been lost. One cannot 
 doubt that his sisters asked him many a question on 
 
The Saints. 
 
 119 
 
 the subject. We can fancy them sitting with him 
 many an evening talking the matter over. But, 
 whether it be that he was allowed to tell them 
 nothing, or that the things which he saw and heard 
 could not be recorded in human language, or whether 
 it is that he did satisfy their curiosity, but the Spirit 
 of God has not seen fit to preserve the story in the 
 Book of Inspiration, we cannot tell. We only know 
 that nothing of his life above has reached us. We 
 say— 
 
 “‘Where wert thou, brother, those four days?’ 
 
 There lives no record of reply, 
 
 Which, telling what it is to die, 
 
 Had surely added praise to praise. 
 
 Behold a man raised up by Christ! 
 
 The rest remaineth unrevealed. 
 
 He told it not, or something sealed 
 The lips of that Evangelist.” 
 
 Still there is perhaps more information to be 
 gleaned from the Bible regarding the occupations 
 of heaven than is generally supposed. Let us see 
 for ourselves. 
 
 For one thing, it is very certain that many of the 
 popular notions on this subject are utter mis¬ 
 conceptions. It is indeed painful to think of the 
 inadequate, indefinite, even grotesque ideas about 
 heaven which many hold, consciously or uncon¬ 
 sciously. A common conception among a class by 
 no means small is one little better than that of a 
 huge singing school. It is the idea of a place with¬ 
 out other employment than constantly standing 
 
 9 
 
120 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 before the Divine Being and celebrating His praise. 
 Perhaps you say, is not that the idea of heaven 
 given us in the Bible ? Do we not read that the 
 saints are continually before the throne, and praise 
 Him day and night in His temple ? Are we not 
 told over and over again of the songs, and the golden 
 harps, and the voices as the sound of many waters ? 
 Certainly we are. But as we read such descriptions, 
 please let us remember two things. First, let us 
 recollect that the Book of Revelation, in which we 
 find these accounts of heaven, is a figurative book. 
 The descriptions which it gives us are beautiful 
 and elaborate, and highly wrought. But they are 
 poetical and symbolical. You do not expect really to 
 see in heaven all that is described there,—a literal 
 Tree of Life, precious stones in the foundations of 
 the walls, or real crowns of gold on the heads of the 
 saints. These things are figures,—figures certainly 
 of great realities, but figures all the while. This is 
 the first point to remember. The second is that 
 John, who wrote this book, describes in it merely 
 passing glimpses that he got of the heavenly land. 
 He was not a dweller there at the time he wrote the 
 Apocalypse. He only went to it in the spirit, and 
 he only tells us how the inhabitants were occupied at 
 the time he saw them. To suppose that they spend 
 all their time in the way in which they were engaged 
 when he obtained his brief view of them, would be 
 about as correct as to believe that because some 
 one, looking in upon a Christian congregation on a 
 
Tlie Saints. 
 
 121 
 
 Sabbath day, saw them engaged in worship, he might 
 therefore conclude that all their days were spent only 
 in acts of worship. To suppose- that the sole occupa¬ 
 tion of heaven is singing is to suppose a very strange 
 heaven, one which our natures must be completely 
 changed before we could enjoy or appreciate, a 
 heaven, moreover, in which, if we examine the Bible 
 carefully, there is no ground whatever for believing. 
 
 There are three points about heaven which we 
 must bear carefully in mind if we would have any 
 correct idea of its occupations. 
 
 1. It is a place for men and women. This truth, 
 obvious and self-evident though it may seem, cannot 
 be too strongly insisted on. Of course heaven has 
 other inhabitants. It is, as we have seen, God’s 
 dwelling-place, and the Cherubim and Angels con¬ 
 stitute no small portion of its tenants. But, when 
 we reach it, we shall find a place prepared for us 
 (John xiv. 2). Now, death, whatever it does, does 
 not change our nature. It does not transform us 
 from men and women into angels. It does not make 
 us different beings from what we are. We shall be 
 men and women after death, as we are men and 
 women now. There are three stages in human life 
 —the stage of nature, the stage of grace, the stage 
 of glory. When one passes from the state of nature 
 into a state of grace, there is a great change, a 
 marvellous change. The whole man—body, soul, 
 and spirit—is not merely altered, but revolutionized. 
 But the man is still a man as truly after conversion 
 
122 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 as he was before; and not only a man, but the same 
 man, changed from the heart out, and yet with his 
 identity unaltered. So, when one passes from the 
 stage of grace into the stage of glory, there is another 
 change, a stupendous change, the nature and extent 
 of which we shall see by and by. But this change, 
 like the other, does not make its subject cease to be 
 a man. Death changes our habitation, evicting us 
 from the house of clay. It unclothes us, strips off 
 the garment of the flesh. But a change of habitation 
 changes no one’s nature. Still less does a change of 
 dress. The soul is not altered by death, and the 
 soul is the man. The fears of death, which many 
 people distress themselves with, arise from forgetting 
 all this. The good man’s death is really only a 
 flitting, a flitting from a poor house to one infinitely 
 beautiful and happy. The man is the same man in 
 both dwellings. His nature is no doubt refined, 
 purified, elevated, and “ made meet for the inherit¬ 
 ance of the saints in light.” But it is the same 
 nature, and he is the same person after the change 
 of abode as before. 
 
 Now, if heaven is to be a place for men and 
 women, its occupations must be such as are suited 
 to men and women. Eternal singing would not be 
 suited to them. It would weary us. It would not 
 occupy all our nature. It would be useless. If we 
 would have a correct idea of heaven, we must think 
 of a place where all the holy powers and faculties of 
 men and women will be engaged, pleasingly engaged, 
 
The Saints. 
 
 123 
 
 profitably engaged. This may seem a simple and 
 obvious thought. But by following it, we shall find 
 that we have obtained a clue to a far juster con¬ 
 ception of the joys of the blessed world than many 
 people entertain. 
 
 2. Again, it will help us to have some adequate 
 idea of heaven, if we recollect that earth is a pre¬ 
 paration for it. Here we are in the vestibule of 
 God’s temple of life. We are at the outset of the 
 eternal voyage. How if this life be a preparation, 
 and be intended to be a preparation, for the next, 
 there must be a resemblance in the heavenly life to 
 this. It is no doubt higher and holier by far. But 
 unless it is in some degree like this, how can the life 
 here be a preparation for it ? A boy at school is 
 being prepared for life in the world. Ho doubt 
 there is a great difference between schoolboy life and 
 the struggle of varied passions and clashing interests 
 which make up the life of too many men and women. 
 Still the boy-world is the bigger world in miniature 
 after all. The arithmetic that he learns in the 
 schoolroom is employed in after-life in the solution 
 of real instead of imaginary problems. The book¬ 
 keeping is to be practised in veritable ledgers and 
 day-books. The geography is the world on paper. 
 The strict discipline and hard mental exercise of the 
 school are to fit him for waging successfully the 
 battle of life, and even the sports of the playground 
 have in them not a little resemblance to, and 
 education for, the sterner occupations of the busy 
 
124 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 world outside. True, the school-world is not just 
 like the great world beyond its precincts. But there 
 is the same human nature in both. Unless there 
 were, the days spent under the schoolmaster’s rod 
 would be useless for the purpose for which they are 
 intended. Now, if heaven does not bear a certain 
 resemblance to earth, and its occupations to those 
 here, this world can be no preparation for it. All 
 the discipline here will go for nothing. We are now 
 at a school which has no relation to the life it is 
 intended to fit us for. Surely this cannot be. You 
 remember how St. John reasons,—“ Beloved, now are 
 we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what 
 we shall be: but we know that, when He shall 
 appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him 
 as He is. And every man that hath this hope in 
 him purifieth himself, even as He is pure ” (T John 
 iii. 2, 3). That is to say, we are to imitate Jesus 
 on this ground, that hereafter we hope to be liker 
 Him than we are now. Here we have some faint 
 resemblance to Him—alas! very faint. But we are 
 to cultivate and develop this resemblance in the 
 prospect of attaining a more complete likeness one 
 day. We are at school here. Let us learn our 
 lessons so diligently, that, when we emerge from the 
 dominion of tutors and governors, we may be fitted 
 for taking our place in the great world for which 
 they are meant to prepare us. 
 
 3. Last of all, we are to remember that heaven is 
 intended to restore man to the state from which he 
 
The Saints. 
 
 125 
 
 has fallen. The object of Redemption is to undo the 
 evil of the Fall, and make man again what he was 
 before it took place. And heaven is the completion 
 of Redemption. Now what was man before the 
 Fall ? Certainly he was man then as much as he is 
 man now, endowed with man’s nature, busied about 
 human occupations. The difference was, that then 
 there was no toil in these occupations, and that all 
 the time he was busied about them he was in 
 conscious and constant communion with God. But 
 Adam in Eden was as veritable a man as he was 
 afterwards, or as any of us is now. Indeed, he was 
 more, rather than less, a man than we. He was the 
 perfect, the ideal man. Now, if that be so, and if 
 heaven is to be a restoration of that state, a bringing 
 back of that happy time,—and everything points to 
 the conclusion that it will be this,—then its life 
 must be a life still suited for human beings. The 
 circle which began in Eden must wind itself round 
 until it ends in an Eden again. 
 
 You can see for yourselves the plain conclusions 
 to which all these considerations point. Heaven is 
 to be a place for men and women. Then it must be 
 a place whose life and occupations will give full play 
 to the faculties and aptitudes of men and women. 
 We have a tripartite nature. We are composed of 
 body, soul, and spirit, and all three will be in 
 heaven. At the resurrection each good man’s body, 
 raised from the dust, and reunited to his soul, 
 will enter glory. There must then be occupation 
 
126 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 for the body there. There will be this difference 
 between the body here and there, that in heaven it 
 will be freed from everything which now clogs and 
 confines it. Here we often feel that it is indeed the 
 “ body of onr humiliation.” The aching head, the 
 weary fingers, hamper us and keep us back. In 
 heaven there shall be no weariness. Hone shall say, 
 “ I am sick.” There shall be no death. So with 
 the mind. There will be no failure of memory, no 
 reeling or decay of intellect, no dimness of under¬ 
 standing in heaven, and the soul, no longer “ cabined, 
 cribbed, confined ” in a body having in it so many 
 elements of weakness, will be able to take flights, 
 and to expatiate in regions to which now it is and 
 must be a stranger. As Dr. Norman Macleod 
 beautifully says: “ If we can imagine a man with 
 his whole nature in a state of perfect health, each 
 portion demanding and obtaining its appropriate 
 nourishment, and with all his powers beautifully 
 balanced and in perfect harmony with the plan of 
 God, 4 according to the effectual working in the 
 measure of every part/ the senses ministering to the 
 most refined tastes, the intellect full of light in the 
 apprehension of truth and strong in its discovery, 
 the moral being possessing perfect holiness and un¬ 
 erring subjection to the will of God, the love of 
 society able to rest upon fitting objects and to find a 
 full return for its sympathies in suitable companion¬ 
 ships, while ample scope was afforded for activity by 
 congenial labour, then would such a state be per- 
 
The Saints. 
 
 127 
 
 fection or fulness of joy in God’s presence here 
 below. . . . Had perfect man been translated to 
 another region, we cannot conceive his joy thereby 
 to become essentially different in kind, though 
 different in degree, supposing him to remain the 
 same being and to possess the same human nature. 
 How man’s fall has not altered this principle. Sin 
 is a perversion of human nature, not its annihilation ; 
 a disorder of its powers, not their destruction. Nor 
 is restoration by Jesus Christ the gift of a different 
 constitution, as if He made us something else than 
 human beings; but the renovation of the old consti¬ 
 tution after its original type. It is making the ‘ old 
 man,’ diseased, bent down, paralysed, deaf, blind, the 
 ‘ new man,’ with frame erect, limbs strong, eyes and 
 ears open, and all his powers fresh and vigorous for 
 immortality ; and, therefore, that which would consti¬ 
 tute the happiness of man, were he perfect on earth, 
 will be his happiness, though in a higher degree, 
 when he is made perfect in heaven.” 1 
 
 There is good reason for believing that the redeemed 
 in heaven will be largely occupied in following out 
 the favourite occupations which they had on earth. 
 You say—“ Surely it cannot be so. There is a miser. 
 His favourite occupation on earth is to gather 
 money. Do you ask us to believe that that is to 
 be his favourite occupation in heaven too ? ” The 
 answer comes by asking you another question— 
 Will that miser be there ? I am not going to 
 1 Parish Papers , by Norman Macleod, D.D., p. 97. 
 
128 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 answer the query. I merely ask it. It is for you 
 to answer it. Or if you cannot, go to Paul, and 
 hear what he says on the point. His words are 
 very plain: “Ho covetous man (who is an idolater) 
 hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and 
 of God ” (Eph. v. 5). There is now-a-days an easy¬ 
 going style of taking for granted that this person 
 and that person will be in heaven as a matter of 
 course, for which we shall have difficulty in finding 
 sanction in the Bible. We are speaking now of 
 those who shall be in heaven, who, being there, have 
 got there by the only way by which any man can 
 get to heaven, even by the new and living way 
 opened in Jesus Christ our Lord, and who, being His 
 followers, had not their portion in this life, but took 
 up and carried their cross patiently on earth before 
 they reached the crown above. Heaven is a prepared 
 place for a prepared people. A prepared people must 
 be a sanctified people, and a sanctified people must be 
 a people of pure thoughts and holy purposes, and those 
 pure thoughts and holy purposes which guided and 
 governed the occupations of earth, will live on to 
 prosecute, still further, similar occupations in heaven. 
 
 Perhaps, for example, you are a student. If so, 
 you are often made painfully aware by bitter experi¬ 
 ence of the limitations by which your studies are 
 shut in. The powers of both mind and body are 
 limited. You often encounter high walls which rise 
 across your path,—walls which you cannot climb. 
 If, for instance, you are a student of the Bible, how 
 
The Saints. 
 
 129 
 
 many mysteries you find to perplex you in its pages, 
 mysteries which, in many cases, are to you utterly 
 insoluble! Why is there evil in the world—the 
 mystery of the divine decrees—“ freewill, fixed fate, 
 foreknowledge absolute ”—who by searching can find 
 out these ? Even if you are only a student of 
 nature, how many things there are which the keenest 
 scalpel of the anatomist and the strongest microscope 
 of the biologist cannot bring to light! Who has yet 
 explained, who can explain, the mystery of being, 
 the mystery of life, the mystery of growth ? It is 
 the same if you are a student of philosophy. Its 
 problems fascinate but baffle you; you are per¬ 
 plexed by the rival claims of contending schools of 
 thought. “Now we see through a glass darkly.” 
 .Yes, certainly it is so. No truer description of the 
 state of our knowledge was ever given. Our hearts 
 utter their solemn and sad Amen to it. But shall 
 it be always so ? Shall this painful dimness rest 
 for ever upon our vision ? Are we evermore to be 
 forced to make the humbling confession—“ Now we 
 know in part ” ? No! “ Now we see through a 
 
 glass darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in 
 part, then shall I know even as also I am known ” 
 (1 Cor. xiii. 12). What bright vistas into the dark 
 future these words open! 
 
 We can easily conceive how they will be fulfilled. 
 With bodies freed from all weakness, bodies that 
 shall never any more know what it is to be tired, 
 
 with minds whose every power shall be sharpened 
 
 I 
 
130 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 and strengthened and intensified to a degree which 
 to us is at present inconceivable, with souls enjoying 
 with open face the vision of God, and with a light 
 bathing us on every side, compared with which the 
 brightest light of earth is darkness, a light unspeak¬ 
 able and full of glory, how easy all study will be 
 as compared with now! How successful as easy! 
 How delightful as successful! We read of Sir 
 Isaac Newton weeping over one of his great dis¬ 
 coveries, so overwhelming was the joy of it. If 
 that was the feeling caused by a comparatively 
 small scientific achievement here, what must the 
 rapture be of an increase of knowledge flowing, 
 in ever - swelling flood, upon the soul to all 
 eternity! 
 
 Again, one of our greatest delights here is friend¬ 
 ship. It has been well called the wine of life. He 
 is a poor specimen of a man who has no joy in any 
 one but himself, and no pleasure save in the advance¬ 
 ment of his own interests. Sir Walter Scott’s words 
 are strong, but not too strong— 
 
 “The wretch, concentred all in self, 
 
 Living shall forfeit fair renown, 
 
 And, doubly dying, shall go down 
 To the vile earth from whence he sprung, 
 
 Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung.” 
 
 But under what sad difficulties friendships are 
 here fostered and pursued! There is, for example, 
 the difficulty of distance. Families may be bound 
 together by the fondest, strongest love, but how often 
 
The Saints. 
 
 131 
 
 the most united family becomes scattered miles on 
 miles apart! Love is not extinguished by distance. 
 “ Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” But how 
 circumscribed it makes the intercourse! How often 
 we yearn to see the faces of our friends beyond 
 the ocean, and to grasp their hands! How sad the 
 thought that some of us will have to go down to the 
 grave without ever seeing them again! But how 
 gladsome that there shall be nothing of all this in 
 heaven! What may be the exact exegesis of the 
 words, “ There shall be no more sea,” it is difficult to 
 say. But this, at all events, I take out of them, that 
 in heaven there shall be no more separation. Space 
 and time will not there offer the obstructions to 
 intercourse that they do here. We and our friends 
 shall be together—together for ever. 
 
 Then what new friendships there will be the 
 opportunity of forming in heaven! Fancy the 
 interest of hearing Abraham recount the story of 
 Isaac, or Jacob telling us over again his dream, or 
 Paul describing that day when he was caught up to 
 the third heaven, or Luther repeating the story of 
 the convent at Erfurt, or John Knox giving us, with 
 his old fire, the tale of his contendings with Mary 
 Queen of Scots at Holyrood. Imagine the delight 
 of conversing with the great men of a nearer past. 
 As we conjure up such scenes, we come to know 
 what Bunyan felt and meant when, as he con¬ 
 cludes the first part of his glorious dream with 
 a description of what he saw in heaven, he says, 
 
132 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 “ Which when I had seen, I wished myself amongst 
 them ! ” 
 
 A tuneful singer has well caught this idea of how 
 each one’s longings and ideals of bliss will be realized 
 above, when he says— 
 
 “ ‘ What is heaven ? ’ I asked a little child ; 
 
 ‘All joy!’ and in her innocence she smiled. 
 
 I asked an aged one with care oppressed. 
 
 ‘ All suffering o’er, oh, heaven at last is rest! ’ 
 
 I asked a maiden, meek and tender-eyed. 
 
 c It must be love ! ’ she modestly replied. 
 
 I asked the artist who adored his art. 
 
 ‘ Heaven is all beauty ! ’ spoke his raptured heart. 
 
 I asked a poet, with his soul afire. 
 
 ‘ ’Tis glory ! glory ! ’ and he struck his lyre. 
 
 I asked the Christian, waiting her release, 
 
 A halo round her. Low she murmured, ‘ Peace ! ’ 
 
 So all may look with hopeful eyes above, 
 
 ’Tis beauty, glory, joy, rest, peace, and love.” 
 
 I think there is reason to believe that one of the 
 greatest joys of heaven will arise from the interest 
 we shall still take in the scenes we have left behind 
 us on earth. If memory is still to exist in heaven, 
 as plainly it shall, if, instead of being impaired, 
 it, in common with every other faculty, is to be 
 strengthened and intensified to a degree now incon¬ 
 ceivable, it is impossible that there should not be 
 this interest. 
 
 We know how here, when absent from home, our 
 
The Saints. 
 
 133 
 
 thoughts are still gravitating back thither. The truth 
 is constantly receiving fresh proof— 
 
 “Where’er I go, where’er my footsteps roam, 
 
 My heart untravelled fondly turns to home.” 
 
 When the Irish emigrant sails away toward the 
 West from the old homestead, his love for it, and the 
 memory of the Emerald Isle, instead of fading and 
 disappearing with the blue hills which sink in the 
 evening shadows below the horizon, increase tenfold. 
 When he tells his own story, he says— 
 
 “ As slow our ship her foaming track 
 Against the wind was cleaving, 
 
 Her trembling pennant still looked back 
 To that dear land ’twas leaving. 
 
 So loath we part from those we love, 
 
 From all the links that bind us; 
 
 And thus we turn, where’er we rove, 
 
 To those we left behind us.” 
 
 Is it so on earth, and shall it be otherwise in 
 heaven ? Eemember—we have seen that we are to 
 be men and women there—and that we are to retain 
 all our powers of memory and reflection, which means 
 that we shall not forget. If this is to be so, you will 
 see that it is inconceivable and impossible that, when 
 we pass beyond the veil, we shall lose all interest in 
 the scenes and persons which now occupy us. 
 
 Eemember, again, what we have already seen— 
 that death does not destroy, does not change us— 
 that we shall be the same in heaven that we are 
 here. Well, you could not forget your children 
 here. They could not forget you. No distance 
 
134 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 could break the tie between you and them. Will 
 you forget them there ? Or will they forget you ? 
 Impossible! 
 
 I believe, moreover, that the redeemed above are 
 cognizant of what we are doing here below,—that, 
 from behind the thin veil which severs us from them, 
 they are looking down upon us constantly. Does 
 the Bible say so ? I believe it does. Even if it 
 were silent on the subject, the considerations which 
 have been already adduced would be sufficient for 
 me at all events. But I do not think it is silent. 
 What is the meaning, for example, of that oft-quoted 
 verse: “ Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed 
 about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay 
 aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily 
 beset us, and let us run with patience the race that 
 is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and 
 finisher of our faith ” (Heb. xii. 1, 2) ? Who are 
 these “ witnesses ” ? The previous chapter tells us. 
 They are the world’s heroes of faith. They are now 
 ascended on high. But from those grand heights 
 which they have attained, the Apostle says they are 
 “witnesses.” Witnesses of what ? Of how we who are 
 left behind are running our race towards the heavenly 
 goal. That seems a very plain intimation that they 
 know what we are about. In the Gospel of Luke, 
 again, we read: “ I say unto you that likewise joy 
 shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, 
 more than over ninety and nine just persons, which 
 need no repentance ” (Luke xv. 7). Most precious 
 
The Saints. 
 
 135 
 
 teaching ! What does it tell us ? Why, something 
 like this—In the house of God, hearts are being 
 stirred under the preaching of a herald of the cross. 
 At last one hearer, who has been, perhaps, long 
 anxious about his soul, lays down the weapons of 
 his rebellion and gives himself to God. Forthwith 
 the news travels to the upper sanctuary, and at once 
 every face beams with joy, and every heart is filled 
 with gratitude. The angels rejoice. The saints 
 rejoice. May we not believe that gladdest of all are 
 his own friends in heaven—perhaps his parents, long 
 dead, but who have not ceased to watch over him 
 with loving solicitude, though they are in the other 
 world and he in this,—perhaps his children gone 
 before him ? 
 
 The truth is, we make far too much of the distance 
 between the two worlds, and of the separation 
 between us here and our friends there. The Bible 
 speaks of them and us as one family (Eph. iii. 15), 
 and, if our faith were but a little stronger, we should 
 see that all the members of this one family are alike 
 under the eye and wing of God—near to each other, 
 and near to Him. There is deep truth in the words— 
 
 “ One family we dwell in Him, 
 
 One Church above, beneath, 
 
 Though now divided by the stream, 
 
 The narrow stream, of death.” 
 
 Active employment in doing God’s will will 
 doubtless form another chief element in the happi¬ 
 ness of heaven. Have you noted the apparent 
 
136 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 contradiction between such passages as say, “ There 
 remaineth a rest for the people of God ” (Heb. iv. 9), 
 and those which give us the impression of a perpetual 
 busy-ness in heaven ? They rest there, and yet they 
 “ rest not day nor night.” There is here no real 
 contradiction. Rest and inactivity are not synonym¬ 
 ous terms. 
 
 “ The want of occupation is not rest, 
 
 A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed.” 
 
 There is work which is really rest, and there is 
 cessation from work which is the direst toil. Heaven 
 is all rest, but that is a very different thing from 
 saying that its life is a scene of idle inactivity. 
 There is no weariness known within its bounds, but 
 there is a constant occupation in the holiest works. 
 The language of each of God’s servants there is the 
 language of the Son of God: “ I delight to do Thy 
 will, 0 God.” 
 
 “ Resting, but not in slumb’rous ease, 
 
 Working, but not in wild unrest, 
 
 Still ever blessing, ever blest, 
 
 They see us as the Father sees.” 
 
 But the best element in the happiness of that 
 joyous world is doubtless the close, constant com¬ 
 munion with Christ which always prevails there. 
 This is indescribable. To think that we shall see 
 with these very eyes the Man of Sorrows—that we 
 shall look upon His blessed face—that we shall 
 hear His voice, and touch His hand, and be “ for 
 ever with the Lord ”—oh, there is in that single 
 
The Saints. 
 
 137 
 
 thought a wealth of bliss sufficient of itself to make 
 a heaven, though every other element of happiness 
 were absent! All of us have often echoed the senti¬ 
 ment of the hymn which our children sing,— 
 
 “ I think, Avhen I read that sweet story of old, 
 
 How when Jesns was here among men, 
 
 He gathered the children like lambs to His fold, 
 
 I could wish to have been with them then. 
 
 I could wish that His hands had been laid on my head, 
 
 That His arms had been thrown around me; 
 
 And that I could have heard His sweet voice as He said : 
 ‘Let the little ones come unto me.’” 
 
 And we have envied the disciples walking and 
 talking with Jesus among the hills of Galilee, along 
 the slopes of Olivet, and on the shores of the Lake 
 of Gennesaret. Well, we shall have just such inter¬ 
 course with Him in heaven. “ Thine eyes shall see 
 the King in His beauty.” When we “ depart,” we 
 shall he “ with Christ.” We shall dwell for ever 
 with departed loved ones; but, what is more blessed 
 and important by far, we shall dwell “ for ever with 
 the Lord.” Here we have some nearness to Him. 
 But at the best it is a distant nearness. We see 
 Him, but it is “ through a glass darkly.” We hear 
 His voice with the ear of faith, but the voice some¬ 
 times sounds indistinct and far away. But then, oh 
 blissful prospect! “ we shall see Him as He is,” and 
 His voice shall be the voice of one close at hand. 
 That thought should swallow up every other. 
 
 Sometimes, when sitting up at night in a sick¬ 
 room, you have noticed that, when daybreak drew on, 
 
138 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 the lights in the room began to appear dim. You 
 have looked out into the street, and the lamps, which 
 an hour ago looked bright and cheerful, now appear 
 yellow and sickly, and by and by, as the sunlight 
 gathers strength, they grow invisible altogether. So 
 we have many loves and friendships here which we 
 prize as lights in a dark place. In heaven we shall 
 enjoy and prize them too. But, compared with the 
 enjoyment of Christ Himself, they shall be only as 
 those lights in the sick-room when the great sun has 
 risen in his strength. He will fill all things—all 
 eyes—all hearts—all thoughts. Much as we shall 
 love others, our song will be, not of them, but of 
 “ Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins 
 in His blood.” “ For ever with the Lord * is the 
 believer’s hope— 
 
 * ‘ For ever with the Lord ! 
 
 Amen ! so let it be : 
 
 Life from the dead is in that word, 
 
 ’Tis immortality.” 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 CCijillmn in ©eabetu 
 
 139 
 
CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 CHILDREN IN HEAVEN. 
 
 /^YF all topics connected with the subject we are 
 ^ discussing, none comes home to a wider circle 
 than the thought of children in heaven. 
 
 “ There is no fireside, howsoe’er defended, 
 
 But has one vacant chair; 
 
 There is no flock, however watched and tended, 
 
 But one dead lamb is there. 
 
 The air is full of farewells for the dying, 
 
 And mournings for the dead. 
 
 The heart of Rachel, for her children crying, 
 
 Will not be comforted.” 
 
 You cannot help thinking, 0 mother, often and 
 sadly, of that little one you have in heaven. You 
 remember the day when the coffin came home for 
 her; and oh ! how well you remember the first night 
 after it went away again, carrying in it that sweet 
 little form. As you sat in your loneliness, you could 
 well enter into the poet’s words,— 
 
 “No mother’s eye beside thee wakes to-night, 
 
 No taper burns beside thy lonely bed ; 
 
 Darkling thou liest, hidden out of sight, 
 
 And none are near thee but the silent dead. 
 
 141 
 
142 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 How cheerily glows this hearth, yet glows in vain ; 
 
 For we, uncheered, beside it sit alone, 
 
 And listen to the wild and beating rain 
 In angry gusts against our casement blown. 
 
 And, though we nothing speak, yet well I know 
 
 That both our hearts are there where thou dost keep, 
 Within thy narrow chamber far below, 
 
 For the first time unwatched, thy lonely sleep.” 
 
 Let us talk for a little about the children in 
 heaven. 
 
 I. Let us speak of the children of Believers. 
 Here, happily, we can tread on the firmest of firm 
 ground. The light which shines upon them in the 
 other world is as clear as could be. From the very 
 beginning of the Bible we see them included with 
 their parents in the Covenant. Under the Jewish 
 economy they were marked for God with the seal 
 of circumcision, and the recognition which He thus 
 gave them has never been withdrawn. For we are 
 the children of Abraham. So Paul argues in the 
 Epistle to the Galatians. “ It is written,” he says, 
 “ that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bond¬ 
 maid, the other by a free woman. ... We are not 
 children of the bondwoman, but of the free ” (Gal. 
 iv. 22, 31). Again, in the Epistle to the Romans, 
 he tells us that we have been “ grafted in ” among 
 the branches of the Israelitish stock, so as with them 
 to partake “ of the root and fatness of the olive tree.” 
 God has not had two Churches in the world, the 
 Jewish and the Gentile. Since time began there 
 has only been one Church, one Church though with 
 
Children in Heaven . 
 
 143 
 
 two dispensations. So, if the Almighty has once 
 admitted the children into His visible Church, and 
 never cancelled that admission, they are in it still. 
 For nearly two thousand years before the Advent 
 they were acknowledged as in it; and in all the 
 two thousand years which have passed since, not 
 so much as a word has been spoken to indicate any 
 change in the will of God concerning them. On 
 the contrary, by word and deed the great Head of 
 the Church has shown in the clearest manner that 
 that will of His concerning them remains unchanged. 
 The membership of infants who are children of 
 believers therefore remains unchanged. “A divine 
 law cannot be set aside by anything short of divine 
 authority, and divine authority for depriving the 
 children of a right which they enjoyed for two 
 thousand years is something that up to the present 
 time has never yet been brought forward.” 1 Marked 
 as God’s in infancy, in accordance with His own 
 bidding, they cannot be refused as His above. 
 
 Peter’s famous Pentecostal sermon speaks very 
 decidedly regarding children. “ The promise,” he 
 says, “ is unto you and to your children ” (Acts ii. 
 39). Paul and Silas give, if possible, a still plainer 
 indication of the will of God concerning them in the 
 Christian dispensation. “ Believe on the Lord Jesus 
 Christ,” they said to the Philippian jailer, “ and thou 
 shalt be saved, and thy house” (Acts xvi. 31). Too 
 
 1 Scriptural Baptism, its Mode and Subjects. By Thomas 
 Witherow, D.D. 
 
144 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 often, when this classic text is quoted, those closing 
 three words are left out. Yet how precious they 
 are! They tell us that when a man is a believer, 
 not only does his faith bless himself, but his children 
 somehow share the blessings of it with him. He is 
 saved, and the same authority which tells us so, tells 
 us also that his family, through his faith, come into 
 the Covenant. To the same purport are Paul’s 
 words—“The unbelieving husband is sanctified by 
 the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by 
 the husband: else were your children unclean ; but 
 now are they holy” (1 Cor. viii. 14). 
 
 Yes, our children are taken together with us into 
 the Covenant. In some mysterious manner they 
 share with us both its privileges and blessings. If 
 any inducement were needed to lead a man to come 
 to Christ, in addition to the good which will thereby 
 accrue to himself, it is surely found in this, that, so 
 coming, he not only obtains blessings for himself but 
 for his children. And if such blessings are obtained, 
 if those children are thus brought within the pale of 
 that Covenant of Grace in connection with which all 
 our mercies are enjoyed, can we doubt that, passing 
 away in infancy, they go to inherit its rich fruits in 
 the bright world beyond the stars ? 
 
 II. But what of the infants of Unbelievers ? It 
 must at once be acknowledged that the evidence in 
 favour of their salvation is not so perfect as in the 
 case just considered. To me, however, it seems con¬ 
 vincing enough. I believe that they too, dying in 
 
Children in Heaven. 
 
 145 
 
 infancy, without doubt get to heaven. Why ? (1.) 
 
 Because of the character of God. “ God is love.” 
 No earthly father ever loved his children as God 
 loves us. Too much has, doubtless, been sometimes 
 built on the love of God. It has been argued,— 
 God is love, therefore He will not punish me for 
 my sins. The minor premise here is correct; but 
 the major is wrong, and therefore so is the conclusion. 
 The syllogism is a faulty one. But the case before 
 us is one of quite another kind. I hold it to be 
 inconceivable that a Being whose nature is so im¬ 
 bued with love that the only mode in which He can 
 be correctly described is by saying that He is love 
 itself, could doom infants who have never committed 
 one actual sin to everlasting destruction. Would He 
 be love if He did ? Who could say so ? 
 
 (2.) Besides, the mode in which children are spoken 
 of in the Bible shows us plainly that such a thing 
 is impossible. They are called “ an heritage of the 
 Lord ” (Ps. cxxvii. 3). They are repeatedly held up 
 to us as models for our imitation. “ Jesus called a 
 little child unto Him, and set him in the midst of 
 them, and said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be 
 converted, and become as little children, ye shall not 
 enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever, there¬ 
 fore, shall humble himself as this little child, the 
 same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And 
 whoso shall receive one such little child in my name 
 receiveth me. But whoso shall offend one of these 
 
 little ones which believe in me, it were better for 
 
 K 
 
146 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, 
 and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea ” 
 (Matt, xviii. 2—6). Often we invert our Lord’s 
 teaching. He said we must become as little children, 
 if we are ever to be in His kingdom. We say, and 
 oftener think, that the little children must become 
 men and women before they can be in it. Is not the 
 Master’s teaching best ? 
 
 He puts the matter very plainly in another 
 passage—“ Then were there brought unto Him little 
 children, that He should put His hands on them, and 
 pray: and the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus 
 said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to 
 come unto me; for of such is the kingdom of heaven. 
 And He laid His hands on them ” (Matt, xix, 13—15). 
 These words may well be called the children’s Magna 
 Charta. Mark what they say. “Of such ” — of 
 children, and such as children—the kingdom of 
 heaven consists. Possibly there are more children 
 than adults both in the Church below and the Church 
 above. It is not of the children of converted parents 
 that Christ here speaks. It is of children generally. 
 If we had not a solitary text save this on which to 
 rest our belief in the final salvation of infants, would 
 it not be well founded ? 
 
 In the Old Testament there is one instructive 
 statement bearing on this subject which is not as 
 much known as it should be. When God was doom¬ 
 ing the Israelites to exclusion from Canaan on account 
 of their sins, Moses describes Him as saying, “ Surely 
 
Children in Heaven. 
 
 147 
 
 there shall not one of these men of this evil genera¬ 
 tion see that good land, which I sware to give unto 
 your fathers, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh. He 
 shall see it, and to him will I give the land that he 
 hath trodden upon, and to his children, because he 
 hath wholly followed the Lord. Also the Lord was 
 angry with me for your sakes, saying, Thou also shalt 
 not go in thither, but Joshua the son of Hun, which 
 standeth before thee, he shall go in thither ; encourage 
 him ; for he shall cause Israel to inherit it.” Then 
 follow words specially to be noted—“ Moreover, your 
 little ones, which ye said should be a prey, and your 
 children, which in that day had no knowledge between 
 good and evil, they shall go in thither, and unto them 
 will I give it, and they shall possess it ” (Deut. i. 
 35-39). The analogy between the case of these 
 children and ours is apparent. Those Israelitish 
 parents were unfaithful and unbelieving, and suffered 
 a sore punishment for their faults. But their 
 unoffending children were not allowed to suffer that 
 punishment. Why ? Because they “ had no know¬ 
 ledge between good and evil.” Their innocence 
 saved them. So now, parents may, if they please, 
 shut themselves out of heaven by disobedience and 
 unbelief. But “ their little ones,” are they to be 
 shut out ? Ho doubt God does visit the iniquities 
 of fathers upon their children to the third and 
 fourth generation. But will not the same reason 
 which kept Him from visiting this iniquity upon 
 the Israelites’ children to their destruction still keep 
 
148 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 Him from shutting out the little ones from our 
 promised land ? He is the same God now as He 
 was then. 
 
 But perhaps you say, “ Are we not told in 
 Scripture that salvation hinges on faith ? Infants 
 cannot exercise faith in Christ. How then is it 
 possible for them to he saved ? ” Now, most certainly 
 salvation is by faith—by faith alone. “ Believe on 
 the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and 
 thy house,” is God’s plan of salvation, and “ there is 
 none other name under heaven given among men 
 whereby we must be saved.” But God’s commands 
 are always to be considered in connection with the 
 parties to whom they were given. Lose sight of 
 this obvious principle, and you constantly land your¬ 
 self in confusion. To whom then are these commands 
 to believe, which are so plentifully scattered over 
 the Bible, addressed ? Will any one say that the 
 Bible is written for infants ? Was it expected by 
 its divine Author that infants would read it and 
 master its contents ? When it is said, “ He that 
 believeth and is baptized shall be saved; he that 
 believeth not shall be damned,” are infants con¬ 
 templated or addressed ? Who shall say they are ? 
 “ Well, then,” you perhaps say, “ the heathen may be 
 saved on your principles, and yet be heathen still.” 
 It is well to make no affirmation about the heathen 
 other than what the Bible makes. But it is clear 
 that they stand in a quite different position from 
 infants. Paul argues that “ they are without excuse ” 
 
Children in Heaven. 
 
 149 
 
 (Rom. i. 20). He says they have two means of 
 knowing God. If they have not revelation, they 
 have conscience, and they have God’s works daily 
 and nightly proclaiming “ His eternal power and 
 Godhead.” 
 
 But are infants capable of knowing God by these 
 means ? They are not. Conscience is undeveloped 
 within them. They cannot profit by the light of 
 nature. Take another class, who in this respect 
 stand in the same category as infants—the large 
 body of imbeciles, idiots, lunatics, which every 
 country contains, and which in our own country is 
 increasing to so alarming an extent. These un¬ 
 fortunate creatures are infants in understanding. 
 They cannot believe. They have not the wit to do 
 so. They cannot even comprehend either salvation 
 or the way to it. Are they therefore doomed ? 
 Forbid the thought, you say! Yet the same argu¬ 
 ments which include them in the pale of salvation 
 include also the little ones. Ho, “ God is not 
 unrighteous.” His Bible is addressed to those capable 
 of understanding it. To insist on its terms being 
 complied with by those to whom it was never in¬ 
 tended to apply, and who are incapable of even 
 comprehending its meaning, much less of obeying its 
 mandates, is as if the State should demand the 
 performance of the duties of citizenship, not only by 
 its adult subjects, but by its babes and sucklings. 
 
 Besides, in all the commands which emphasize the 
 necessity of faith, it is noticeable that provision is 
 
150 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 actually made for the children. In the case of 
 Abraham, the father of the faithful, the promise was 
 to him and his children; and, as we have already 
 seen, the command to “Believe on the Lord Jesus 
 Christ ” is accompanied not only by the promise of 
 salvation to the individual believer, but to his house. 
 The children were contemplated in both cases, and 
 their inclusion in the benefits of the covenant ex¬ 
 pressly arranged. 
 
 Well, then, you say, it comes to this, that children 
 are saved apart from Christ ? They cannot exercise 
 faith on Him, and they are saved without Him. 
 Certainly not. Hone, child or adult, will ever stand 
 in glory but by His merits. Child and adult must 
 alike be born again, or they shall not see the kingdom 
 of God. It is regeneration that makes a child of 
 God. But regeneration is by the Holy Spirit, and 
 if that Holy Spirit is like wind, which “ bloweth 
 where it listeth,” who is going to limit His operations ? 
 We have no revelation as to how He deals with 
 infants. We have nothing to do with that dealing, 
 no practical effort to make in connection with it, 
 and therefore the Scriptures are silent on the subject. 
 But if we read, as we do, of children that were God’s 
 “ from their mothers’ wombs,” if we read of Him 
 choosing children “ not yet born, neither yet having- 
 done good or evil,” then that infants may be His from 
 the very earliest moment of their existence is clear as 
 noonday. The mode in which they become so is not 
 our concern. The fact is what we have to do with. 
 
Children in Heaven. 
 
 151 
 
 And the fact is plain. The character of God, His 
 recorded dealings with men, the statements of His 
 Word, all demand that we shall believe that the 
 infants of believer or unbeliever, dying in infancy, 
 shall he taken to Himself. 
 
 There is sound theology as well as quaint thought 
 in old Robert Robinson’s epitaph over the remains of 
 his four children,— 
 
 “Bold infidelity, turn pale and die ! 
 
 Beneath this stone four infants’ ashes lie ; 
 
 Say, are they lost or saved ? 
 
 If death’s by sin, they sinned, for they lie here ; 
 
 If heaven’s by works, in heaven they can’t appear. 
 
 Reason—ah ! how depraved ! 
 
 Revere the Bible’s sacred page, the knot’s untied, 
 
 They died, for Adam sinned ; they live, for Jesus died.” 
 
 Some people interested in the question of the salva¬ 
 tion of infants have been perplexed by a passage in 
 the Westminster Confession of Faith which deals 
 with the matter. The words are these: “ Elect 
 infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved 
 by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when and 
 where and how He pleaseth. So also are all other 
 elect persons who are incapable of being outwardly 
 called by the ministry of the Word.” Part of this 
 statement is plain and clear. It will be seen that the 
 Westminster Divines bear out what we have already 
 been arguing, viz. that the Holy Spirit regenerates 
 infants. How He does so we need not inquire; He 
 works “ when and where and how He pleaseth.” It 
 is also plain that they include infants, as we have 
 
152 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 done, in the same category as others “who are incap¬ 
 able of being called by the ministry of the Word,” 
 viz. persons of unsound mind. So far, their statement 
 is plain and satisfactory. But the point which per¬ 
 plexes some lies in that phrase—“ Elect infants.” 
 They say, does not the expression “ Elect infants ” 
 imply that some infants are non-elect, and therefore 
 not saved ? If this be so, then certainly the West¬ 
 minster Divines are at issue with us on this question. 
 Let us see. 
 
 Now there can be no doubt that election implies 
 rejection, or at all events non-election or passing over. 
 But the question is—the non-election or rejection of 
 whom ? Of other infants, or of other persons of the 
 general body of humanity ? There is the greatest 
 difference, it will at once be seen, between the two 
 alternatives. If we conclude that the language of 
 the Westminster Divines means, and was intended to 
 mean, that out of the whole number of infants born 
 into the world some are elected and others not, then 
 the matter is settled, so far as their authority is 
 concerned, and settled against the position which we 
 have taken up in this chapter. In that case, all 
 infants who die in infancy are not saved. Some are 
 lost. Because none can be saved who have not been 
 elected to salvation. If, however, we conclude, on 
 the other hand, that the statement merely lays down 
 the principle that all infants who are saved must have 
 been elected to salvation, that they could not be 
 saved without this election, and if we conclude 
 
Children in Heaven. 
 
 153 
 
 further, that it affirms nothing regarding the election 
 save and except that it took place, and that it was 
 an election, not of some infants to the exclusion of 
 others, but of infants, leaving the number undeter¬ 
 mined, out of the general body of humanity, then a 
 very different aspect indeed is put upon the passage, 
 and it is seen to affirm nothing whatever on the point 
 at issue. It seems perfectly plain that the latter 
 is the meaning of the Westminster Divines. They 
 could not tell from Scripture what infants were 
 elected to salvation. They had no data bearing on 
 the subject to go upon, and they were not the men 
 to make assertions without adequate grounds. They 
 state the case of infants here with a scriptural accu¬ 
 racy which is worthy of all admiration. They say 
 that all infants who die in infancy, and have been 
 elected to salvation, will be saved. They do not take 
 upon them to say whether the number of such will 
 be great or small, whether it will include all infants 
 or not; and proceeding, as they did throughout their 
 work, on the principle of setting down nothing as 
 the truth of God for which undoubted scriptural 
 evidence could not be adduced, they could not well 
 go further. Their deliverance therefore settles nothing 
 as to the point we are considering. It simply assures 
 us of the fact of infant salvation, but makes no 
 statement whatever as to the number of infants so 
 saved. 
 
 Another question is sometimes put — What of 
 children who die unbaptized ? Can they be in 
 
154 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 heaven ? Or does the fact of their not having 
 received this rite of the Church exclude them ? 
 
 Augustine did not hesitate to reply that the lack 
 of baptism was fatal. Children who die without it 
 might, indeed, receive a mitissima damnatio, but a 
 damnatio they would certainly undergo. The Church 
 of Rome, too, speaks very decidedly on the point. 
 She asserts that to be excluded from baptism is to be 
 excluded from heaven. Her authorized catechism, 
 the Catechism of the Council of Trent, teaches that 
 all will perish eternally who are not renewed by the 
 grace of baptism (II. ques. 25). Neither at death, 
 nor ever after, can infants who die unbaptized be 
 admitted into heaven. 1 Their souls descend imme¬ 
 diately into hell, into what they call the Limbus 
 Infantum . As to the nature of the punishment 
 which they undergo there, opinions differ; some 
 holding, with Pope Innocent III., that they simply 
 endure the loss of heaven ; others, that they suffer 
 horrible agonies of torment. Dante, true to the 
 teaching of his Church, places all unbaptized infants 
 in the Inferno , without hope of deliverance. In 
 
 i “What is certain, yea, a matter of faith, we have from the 
 decisions of the Second Council of Lyons and the Council of 
 Florence, both of which declare concerning infants and idiots : 
 ‘ Credimus . . . illorum animas qui in mortali peccato vel 
 
 cum solo originali decedunt mox in infernum descendere, pcenis 
 tamen disparibus puniendas. ’ Ita quidem Florentinum ‘in decreto 
 Unionis’ quod descripsit verba Lugdunensis in fidei professione. 
 De fide igitur est (1) parvulos ejusmodi in infernum descendere 
 seu damnationem incurrere; (2) pcenis puniori disparibus ab 
 illis quibus puniuntur adulti ” (Perrone, Prcelectiones Theological, 
 i. 494 ). 
 
Children in Heaven. 
 
 155 
 
 holding this view, Eome is consistent with herself. 
 With her, baptism is equivalent to regeneration. It 
 removes all sin, and sanctifies the soul. It conveys 
 to the recipient all the benefits of the redemption of 
 Christ, and is the only divinely appointed channel 
 of their communication. 1 All who hold by the 
 doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration, if they consist¬ 
 ently follow out their principles, must hold the same 
 view. 
 
 It may be doubted, too, whether all good Protest¬ 
 ants are quite free from the notion that baptism is 
 indispensable to salvation. Certainly many people 
 who would be horrified to be thought tinctured in 
 the slightest degree with Roman Catholic ideas have 
 a dread of their children dying unbaptized, which it 
 is difficult to account for if they do not regard the 
 sacrament as absolutely necessary to salvation. How 
 often the minister is summoned at dead of night to 
 baptize an infant supposed to be dying! Such appli¬ 
 cations should not be refused without grave reason. 
 We have no right to withhold the sacraments of the 
 Church from any entitled to receive them. But, if 
 these requests arise from a belief that, should a child 
 die unbaptized, its salvation would be lost, or even 
 imperilled, then those who hold such a view know 
 little of the nature of this or any sacrament, and 
 
 1 ‘ ‘ Exponendum erit lmjus sacramenti virtute nos non solum a 
 malis quae vere maxima dicenda sunt, liberari, verum etiam eximiis 
 bonis augeri. Animus enim noster divina gratia repletur, qua justi 
 et filii Dei effecti aeternae quoque salutis heredes instituimur ” 
 (Catechismus Romanns, ii. 38). 
 
156 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 know still less of the way of salvation. It is a very 
 high doctrine regarding both sacraments which is 
 taught in the Bible and explained in the Shorter 
 Catechism,—many people scarcely realize how high. 
 That incomparable little manual teaches that “A 
 sacrament is an holy ordinance instituted by Christ, 
 wherein, by sensible signs, Christ and the benefits of 
 the new covenant are represented, sealed, and applied 
 to believers.” It tells us that the sacraments may 
 “ become effectual means of salvation,” a statement 
 which is not weakened by the safeguarding clauses 
 which tell us that this efficacy does not arise “ from 
 any virtue in them nor in him that doth administer 
 them, but only by the blessing of Christ and the 
 working of His Spirit in them that by faith receive 
 them.” In the Lord’s Supper, we are told, the 
 worthy receivers are “ made partakers of His body 
 and blood to their spiritual nourishment and growth 
 in grace ; ” though, again, the statement is safeguarded 
 by the statement that this partaking is “ not after a 
 corporal and carnal manner, but by faith.” In regard 
 to baptism, the doctrine inculcated is equally high, 
 for we are told that therein “ the washing with water 
 in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the 
 Holy Ghost doth signify and seal our engrafting into 
 Christ.” All this is undoubtedly high doctrine, but 
 it is no higher than the doctrine of Scripture. There 
 is no Baptismal Regeneration taught or involved 
 in it. The Westminster Divines knew their Bibles 
 too well to hold any such figment. In their “ Con- 
 
Children in Heaven. 
 
 157 
 
 fession” they expressly say—“Although it be a great 
 sin to contemn or neglect this ordinance (baptism), 
 yet grace and salvation are not so inseparably 
 annexed unto it as that no person can be regenerated 
 or saved without it, or that all that are baptized are 
 undoubtedly regenerated ” (Conf. xxviii. 5). It is 
 difficult to see how any man who takes the Bible as 
 his guide can hold otherwise. The penitent thief 
 was saved without baptism. And Simon Magus, 
 although duly baptized, and that by apostolic hands, 
 was pronounced to be still “ in the gall of bitterness 
 and in the bond of iniquity,” and to have “ no part 
 nor lot in the matter.” Paul’s sins were remitted 
 before he was baptized, and Cornelius received the 
 Holy Spirit before he received the same outward 
 sign of regeneration. It requires something mightier, 
 and something which can reach deeper than any 
 Church rite, to cleanse sin away. “ The blood 
 of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all 
 sin.” “ The washing of regeneration and renewing 
 of the Holy Ghost ” makes us pure and holy, and 
 nothing else than these. It is a wonder that any 
 who have the Bible in their hands can believe or 
 teach otherwise. 
 
 That every child should be baptized, and that at 
 the earliest possible moment, is clear. But to make 
 the salvation of any child dependent upon its baptism 
 —in other words, dependent upon the fidelity and 
 punctuality of its parents—is far indeed from the 
 teaching of Holy Scripture. Where is there so 
 
158 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 much as a single verse of the Bible which can he 
 quoted in favour of such a doctrine ? 
 
 A question sometimes asked with regard to 
 children in heaven is—will they be always children ? 
 You lost a child in infancy, let us suppose. You 
 want to know shall it be an infant still when you 
 meet it in glory ? Or will your little girl have 
 grown into a mature or aged woman, your little 
 boy into a man ? It is impossible to avoid putting 
 such questions to ourselves, and all who have lost 
 children must be interested to know what answer is 
 to be given to them. 
 
 The poet Longfellow has given one answer. 
 Speaking of the death of a child, he says,— 
 
 “Not as a child shall we again behold her ; 
 
 For when, with raptures wild, 
 
 In our embraces we again enfold her, 
 
 She will not be a child, 
 
 But a fair maiden, in her Father’s mansion, 
 
 Clothed with celestial grace, 
 
 And beautiful with all the soul’s expansion, 
 
 Shall we behold her face.” 
 
 But another poet replies thus to the American 
 songster,— 
 
 “Oli, say not so, for I would clasp her even 
 As when below she lay upon my breast; 
 
 I would dream of her as a bud in heaven 
 Amid the blossoms blest. 
 
 Yes, as a child, serene and noble poet— 
 
 Oh, heaven were dark were children wanting there ! 
 
 I hope to clasp my bud as when I wore it, 
 
 A dimpled baby fair. 
 
Children in Heaven. 
 
 159 
 
 E’en as a babe, my little dove-eyed daughter, 
 
 Nestle and coo upon my heart again, 
 
 Wait for thy mother by the living water, 
 
 It shall not be in vain. 
 
 Wait as a child ! How shall I know my darling, 
 
 If changed her form and veiled with shining hair ? 
 
 If since her flight has grown my little starling, 
 
 How shall I know her there ? ” 
 
 Which of the two views is correct ? 
 
 As the poets differ on the matter, so do the 
 divines. Some hold that those who die children 
 will be children still in heaven. Others as strongly 
 contend that they will and must grow, that to 
 argue otherwise would be to argue for the continu¬ 
 ance of imperfection above, inasmuch as childhood 
 is an incomplete humanity. Which opinion is 
 right ? 
 
 In reality there are two questions here to be 
 settled. It will be best to keep them separate. 
 
 1. There is the question whether, between death 
 and the resurrection, the child ceases to be a child, 
 and passes on into manhood or womanhood. As to 
 this, let it be remembered that during this interval 
 the little body remains in the grave where it was 
 laid after death, or rather, that it moulders to its 
 kindred dust. But it is the growth of the body 
 that we are speaking of. Perhaps not altogether, 
 for the mind grows with the body. But what 
 specially weighs with the bereaved mother is—will 
 her child’s bodily appearance be changed ?—will the 
 little one be a little one no more ? Now, can the 
 
160 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 body grow in the grave ? Will that dust which, 
 when laid there, was the dust of a child, become, as 
 it lies, the dust of a man or woman ? Surely we 
 have no reason to believe any such thing, but every 
 reason to be quite convinced of the opposite, viz. 
 that the body that is buried will be the body that 
 will rise again. Of course, every one knows that a 
 change will pass over the body at the resurrection. 
 “ It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. 
 It is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory. It is 
 sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body ” 
 (1 Cor. xv. 42). But the same person will be 
 raised that was buried, and it is not easy even to 
 conceive that the dust in the interval can have 
 transformed itself from being the dust of a child 
 into being that of a man or woman. 
 
 Moreover, if the dead who emerge from the graves 
 at the sound of the last trump are not to be the 
 same as those who were laid there, what about the 
 possibility of our recognising them again ? If the 
 child that was buried has become in the interval a 
 woman or a man, how should we know it ? True, a 
 corresponding difficulty is sure to present itself on 
 the other side. The mother who lost a babe when 
 she herself was young, may live to be an old grey¬ 
 headed woman before she is called to her rest, and 
 the question may suggest itself, How is her child to 
 know her, so changed as she will be ? But, if what 
 has been previously advanced in these pages be 
 correct as to the cognizance which the redeemed 
 
Children in Heaven. 
 
 161 
 
 in glory will still have of earthly scenes, this 
 difficulty disappears; for, if it be the case that the 
 saints can look down upon earth and see those who 
 are still there, then we may be sure that the child 
 in glory will, above all other places, keep a loving 
 eye upon the old home, and watch with interest the 
 grey hairs sprinkling themselves on the mother’s 
 head, and the wrinkles creeping over her face, so 
 that at the Great Day the change in her look will 
 be no matter of surprise. 
 
 2. There is a second question, viz. whether after 
 the resurrection the child will grow as it would have 
 grown on earth. The body will then have been 
 raised up and reunited to the soul, so that the child 
 will no longer be the disembodied spirit which it 
 was from death to that great Last Day, but com¬ 
 posed once more, as on earth, of body, soul, and 
 spirit. Growth now is conceivable. Moreover, the 
 difficulty about recognition has disappeared, because, 
 if there is to be growth from this time forward, it 
 will be growth, as on earth, in the view and the 
 society of friends. As to whether there shall be 
 such a growth, however, we really do not know. If 
 there will, various questions suggest themselves. If 
 the infant is to grow, and to be no longer an infant, 
 when is this growth to cease ? When infancy 
 merges into childhood, is the child to grow ? In 
 heaven are the young men and maidens to advance 
 
 to maturity ? And are those who died in maturity 
 
 L 
 
162 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 to become old ? Where is the growth to cease ? 
 What is its limit to be ? According to what rule 
 is it to proceed ? 
 
 The truth is, we know nothing whatever about all 
 this style of things. We have not sufficient light to 
 guide us to any conclusion regarding it. Nor, really, 
 is it important what conclusion we come to. The 
 one point which really interests those who have had 
 children snatched away from them by death is 
 whether they shall meet them again, and whether 
 those little ones shall still be the little ones they 
 parted from on the funeral day. That point we can 
 settle in the affirmative. The children will be 
 children still. As to the rest—may we not safely 
 leave it, as we must perforce leave so many things 
 about our future, to the wisdom and love of Him 
 who “ doeth all things well,” and who will be sure to 
 settle all for the best ? The essential point is, that 
 when we meet our loved and lost again at the Great 
 Day, when the father stands beside his son, and the 
 mother clasps her long-buried daughter’s hand again, 
 they shall be the same, unaltered, as when they 
 passed away,— 
 
 “That so before the Judgment-seat 
 
 Though changed and glorified each face, 
 
 Not unremembered we may meet, 
 
 For endless ages to embrace.” 
 
 There is surely much comfort for the bereaved in 
 all these thoughts about children in heaven. In the 
 
Children in Heaven. 
 
 163 
 
 light of them, may not the most broken-hearted 
 mourner say,— 
 
 “Sleep, little baby, sleep! 
 
 Not in thy cradle bed, 
 
 Not on thy mother’s breast, 
 
 Henceforth shall be thy rest, 
 
 But with the quiet dead. 
 
 God took thee in His mercy, 
 
 A lamb, untaslced, untried. 
 
 He fought the fight for thee, 
 
 He won the victory, 
 
 And thou art sanctified. 
 
 I look around and see 
 The evil ways of men, 
 
 And, 0 beloved child, 
 
 I’m more than reconciled 
 To thy departure then. 
 
 Now, like a dewdrop shrined 
 Within a crystal stone, 
 
 Thou’rt safe in heaven, my dove, 
 
 Safe with the source of love, 
 
 The Everlasting One. 
 
 And, when the hour arrives 
 From flesh that sets me free, 
 
 Thy spirit shall await, 
 
 The first at heaven’s gate 
 To wait and welcome me! ” 
 

 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 30o tij£2 fttiofo one anotljec in Steafan ? 
 
 165 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 DO THEY KNOW ONE ANOTHER IN HEAVEN ? 
 
 II/T ANY a time the question has been asked 
 —Shall we know one another in heaven ? 
 Volumes have been written upon it. Scarcely any 
 one but has had his and her thoughts about it. 
 Specially, it may be safely said that there is no one 
 who has friends in heaven who has not many a time 
 anxiously inquired—Shall I know them again when 
 I get there ? Shall the mother know her child, the 
 child she bore and nursed and lost, over whose 
 coffin she wept so inconsolably, by whose lonely 
 grave she so often and so sadly sits ? Or shall 
 she and it be strangers to each other in heaven— 
 both there, yet neither recognising the other ? 
 Shall the children know their mother, or shall all 
 the loving intercourse of earth be a thing forgotten 
 and never to be renewed ? Is all friendship to 
 end at death, to pass away as a thing of the earth 
 earthy ? The great men of other days, the 
 Abrahams and the Davids and the Isaiahs, the 
 Johns and the Pauls and the Peters, the Polycarps 
 
 167 
 
168 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 and the Augustines and the Chrysostoms, the 
 Luthers and Calvins and Knoxes—shall we meet 
 and know them in heaven, or shall we not ? To 
 say that these questions are interesting, is to say 
 little. They are of absorbing importance. They 
 are questions which we must get answered. We 
 cannot form any clear notion of the society of the 
 blest until we have them resolved. 
 
 The poets, who often best voice the deepest 
 yearnings of humanity, have frequently allowed 
 these wistful questionings to speak in their songs. 
 Many lines referring to the subject are familiar. 
 Here is a recent musing about it which the reader 
 may perhaps thank me for reproducing. It is 
 by an American poetess, Miss Larcom, and is 
 entitled “ Meeting Again,”— 
 
 \ 
 
 “When for me the silent oar 
 Parts the silent river, 
 
 And I stand upon the shore 
 Of the strange For Ever, 
 
 Shall I miss the loved and known ? 
 
 Shall I vainly seek mine own ? 
 
 ’Mid the crowd that come to meet 
 Spirits sin-forgiven,— 
 
 Listening to their echoing feet 
 Down the streets of heaven,— 
 
 Shall I know a footstep near 
 That I listen, wait for here ? 
 
 Then will one approach the brink 
 With a hand extended, 
 
 One whose thoughts I loved to think 
 Ere the veil was rended, 
 
 Saying, ‘Welcome! we have died 
 And again are side by side.’ 
 
Do they know one another in Heaven f 169 
 
 Saying, ‘ I will go with thee 
 That thou be not lonely, 
 
 To yon hills of mystery; 
 
 I have waited only 
 Until now, to climb with thee 
 Yonder hills of mystery.’ 
 
 Can the bonds that make us here 
 Know ourselves immortal, 
 
 Drop away like foliage sere 
 At life’s inner portal ? 
 
 What is holiest below 
 Must for ever live and grow.” 
 
 What answer is to be given to the anxious 
 inquiries of the heart as to whether we shall or 
 shall not know one another when we meet in 
 heaven ? 
 
 Speaking frankly, these questionings seem very 
 unnecessary. Any other idea than that we shall 
 know our friends in heaven appears almost un¬ 
 thinkable. Put to yourself the contrary supposi¬ 
 tion for a moment. What does it mean ? Why, 
 it means that heaven shall be peopled by a great 
 company of utter strangers—worse than strangers, 
 indeed, for strangers thrown into one another’s 
 company on earth soon grow into acquaintance. 
 Half an hour’s chat in a railway carriage is often 
 sufficient to begin a lifelong friendship. But, on 
 the supposition now referred to, we are to sit 
 together in heaven to all eternity without knowing 
 each other, without recognising that the friend 
 to whom we speak was once a near neighbour, a 
 relative, a child, a wife, a mother. 
 
170 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 There are two brothers, let us suppose. They 
 were nursed at the same breast, lived in the same 
 house, went to the same school, played the same 
 games, rambled through the same fields. They 
 separate; one goes to the antipodes to push his 
 fortune, the other to America, and for long neither 
 hears of the other. After forty years’ absence 
 there is a chance meeting. How changed both 
 are! How difficult to recognise in the great, 
 brown-bearded men the striplings of the old village 
 of their youth! Yet how short a time they are 
 together till some chance word, some stray remark 
 or reference, leads to recognition! 
 
 Two young men from the same parish in the 
 Highlands of Scotland once enlisted in different 
 regiments. After the lapse of many years, the 
 regiments lay in the same cantonments in Canada. 
 But, though they often met, these two who had 
 been comrades in the old country did not recognise 
 each other, till on a day in spring a thaw came, 
 and, memory travelling back to the old times among 
 the hills of Perthshire, one said,— 
 
 “ Why, this is a Glentore thaw.” 
 
 “ A Glentore thaw ? What do you know of 
 Glentore ? ” was the quick response. 
 
 “ Well, I ought to know something of it; it’s my 
 birthplace,” said the other. 
 
 In a few minutes that one chance phrase led 
 to recognition and to a renewal of the old com¬ 
 radeship. Shall it be so on earth—shall it be 
 
Do they know one another in Heaven? 171 
 
 impossible for men to be in each other’s society 
 for even a few hours without making acquaintance 
 —shall those long separated not be able to come 
 together in a strange land without soon being led 
 to recognition—and shall it be different in heaven ? 
 There, shall those, who lived together here, live 
 together again for all eternity and not know each 
 other ? The thing is impossible, unless in heaven 
 we are to cease altogether to be the men and 
 women we are here. 
 
 There is an Oriental fable which tells that, 
 according to the doctrine of transmigration, a 
 certain human soul once dwelt in a dove, another 
 in a swallow, and a third in a lark. All three 
 birds lived in the same cage, but with liberty to 
 roam abroad, and many a happy excursion they 
 had underneath a blue Eastern sky, round dizzy 
 cliffs, through green, cool woods. By and by the 
 time came when they must all be born into the 
 human family. The soul of the dove entered a 
 little child, that of the swallow a brother of that 
 child, and that of the lark a sister, two years being 
 between each two births; and so all three came 
 again to be inmates of the same house. They did 
 not for a time know that they had been companions 
 before. As they grew up, however, they began to 
 speak together about the past, about the cage where 
 they used to live, about the merry flights they had 
 once enjoyed, about the narrow escapes they had 
 often had from the sportsman’s arrow and the eagle’s 
 
172 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 talons, and in a little they recognised each other 
 again. Like those birds, we now live in the same 
 house, take the same walks, enjoy the same 
 pleasures. Can it be that when, not by trans¬ 
 migration but by translation, we leave this style 
 of existence and pass into another, there shall be no 
 recollection of the past—that all the old love shall 
 be faded, all the old acquaintance forgotten ? The 
 thing is impossible. 
 
 It is at all events a strong presumption in favour 
 of the doctrine of recognition in heaven, that in all 
 ages men have believed in it. It is an ancient 
 maxim that we may safely believe quod semper, quod 
 ubique , quod ab omnibus. Give us anything to which 
 all humanity bears testimony, and we may accept it 
 as true. Take the belief in immortality, for example, 
 or the belief in a God, or the conviction that there 
 is a future state of rewards and punishments, almost 
 without exception these beliefs are held by all man¬ 
 kind, and have been so held in all ages. Through 
 the conscience of universal man the voice of God 
 attests their truth. Now, our masters of philosophy 
 tell us that such world-wide acceptance of any belief 
 goes far to prove its truth. Dugald Stewart, for 
 instance, says—“ The universal concurrence of man¬ 
 kind in the belief of any proposition is a strong pre¬ 
 sumption, or rather a positive evidence, that this belief 
 has a foundation in the principles of our nature.” 
 And if it has a foundation in the principles of our 
 nature, is it not proved to have a foundation in fact ? 
 
Do they know one another in Heaven f 173 
 
 This doctrine of recognition in heaven seems to be 
 one of these almost, if not altogether, universally 
 received truths. I do not speak of Christian nations 
 only when I say so, but of nations which existed 
 long before the Christian era, and of others outside 
 the pale of Christianity. I speak even of savage 
 races. Readers of Plato will remember how Socrates 
 revelled in the prospect of meeting and conversing 
 with Homer and Hesiod in the world after death. 
 Cicero speaks with enthusiasm of the delight he 
 anticipated in enjoying the society of Cato amid the 
 assembly of the gods. The Greek and Latin classics 
 people Tartarus and Elysium with spirits, and give 
 us frequent pictures of their intercourse. No other 
 thought seems to have entered the minds of the men 
 of cultured antiquity than that there should be not 
 merely another life after this, but another where 
 men would meet and converse and love again as 
 here. It is so still. In the Coral Islands of the 
 Pacific the savage mother, mourning for her dead 
 child, comforts herself with the thought that she and 
 it shall meet again, and know and love once more. 
 In India the practice of widow-burning arose out of 
 the same belief, the wife being supposed to manifest 
 her affection for her departed husband by not remain¬ 
 ing after him in this world, but following with all 
 speed into another, where he and she could be 
 together again. The American Indian bears testi¬ 
 mony to the same general idea, when he stretches 
 his arms to the summits of the blue mountains and 
 
174 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 longs for the time when he and his faithful dog shall 
 be with his ancestors. It is not the Bible that has 
 produced this widespread belief in a state of future 
 recognition. It is the voice of nature that has 
 taught it, the voice of nature which surely here is 
 the voice of God. Is it not the same among our¬ 
 selves ? Leave Scripture teaching aside for the 
 moment, forget altogether what it says on this matter, 
 divest your minds if you can of the impressions it 
 has produced, and is there not still an instinctive 
 feeling in us all that we shall know our friends again 
 in the other world ? Can we imagine anything else ? 
 Is not any other thought horrible ? Could all the 
 divines in the world persuade us that we shall not 
 know our own again in heaven ? And are we to sup¬ 
 pose that God has implanted this belief, this expecta¬ 
 tion in our bosoms, for the purpose of mocking us ? 
 
 It is to be remembered, as has already been 
 shown, that heaven is a place for human beings. 
 We shall not be transmuted into angels when we 
 reach it. Purified, no doubt, we shall be, and 
 ennobled, and exalted, but we shall still be men and 
 women. Quite true, our bodies shall be changed. 
 They shall be made like unto Christ’s own glorious 
 body. But was Christ less a man after His resurrec¬ 
 tion than before ? Is He less the Son of Man now 
 than He was on earth ? We are told in Scripture 
 that we shall in the future be made “ like unto the 
 angels.” But do the angels not know each other ? 
 Are Gabriel and Michael strangers ? Are the angelic 
 
Do they know one another in Heaven f 175 
 
 hosts grains of sand, without union, or coherence, or 
 acquaintance, or fellowship ? By and by we shall 
 be immortal like the angels. We shall do the will 
 of God perfectly like the angels. We shall be happy 
 like the angels. We shall be spiritual beings like 
 the angels. But we shall not cease to be men and 
 women. And heaven would not be a place for men 
 and women if it were not a social place. Man is 
 not a solitary being. It is not good for him to be 
 alone. It is not his nature to be alone. He must 
 and will have companionships, bad companionships 
 if not good. Here and there may be found an 
 isolated, solitary being, who delights only in the 
 society of his bank-book and investment ledger; 
 and, under the influence of false teaching, misguided 
 souls may immure themselves in cells of La Trappe 
 or other monkery. But solitary confinement is not 
 the natural environment of human nature. God 
 “ setteth the solitary in families; ” and does not He 
 know and do what is best? Shall He set us in 
 families here, and surround us with all the love 
 and sweetness of the home, and then, when our 
 time comes for going hence, send us, with natures 
 unchanged and desires unaltered, to a world 
 where none shall know another, a world, truly, 
 of solitary confinement ? The question answers 
 itself. 
 
 But it will be more satisfactory if we consider 
 what the Bible says on the subject of recognition in 
 heaven. Before we do so, however, it may be well 
 
176 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 to ask what kind of evidence we may expect from it 
 on the question. Now, if you have studied the 
 Scriptures carefully, you will have seen that where 
 truths are clear in themselves, where they are written 
 on the heart, where they are demonstrable without 
 the aid of revelation, there are only indirect indica¬ 
 tions of them in Holy Writ. Just as there is an 
 economy of miracle, so there is an economy of revela¬ 
 tion. God does not rain manna from heaven on us 
 as He did on the Israelites, nor is water struck for 
 us out of a rock. We have no need of these extra¬ 
 ordinary interpositions on our behalf, and therefore 
 we do not get them. So you do not find in the 
 Bible any laboured demonstrations of the being of a 
 God, any set proofs of the immortality of the soul, or 
 of the existence of a future state of rewards and 
 punishments. Natural religion teaches these things, 
 and so the Bible, as it were, takes them for granted. 
 It is where truths are, so to speak, against the grain, 
 or where they are beyond our unaided powers to 
 discover, that the Bible speaks out plainly. It is 
 very full and clear on the subject of the Atonement. 
 The doctrine of the Holy Spirit is clearly revealed. 
 On faith, its nature and necessity, there is no 
 uncertain sound given. But on such matters as we 
 can ascertain without the aid of Revelation, it says 
 little. Now, it is easy to see to which of these 
 two classes of truths the doctrine of recognition in 
 heaven belongs. Plainly it is one of those which, 
 altogether apart from Revelation, man is inclined to 
 
Do they know one another in Heaven f 177 
 
 believe, and does believe ; for, as we have already 
 seen, nations which never knew the Bible have 
 formed a conception of it, and entertain a belief 
 more or less definite regarding it. We may expect, 
 therefore, that the evidence in favour of the doctrine 
 of recognition in heaven to be found in Scripture 
 will only be of an indirect and incidental kind. We 
 need not look for express and formal statements on 
 the subject. 
 
 Now, when we open the Sacred Volume, we find 
 that it is even so. Its statements as to this doctrine 
 are incidental. They are often general, and often 
 partake of the nature of undesigned confirmations. 
 But they are not less, but all the more, valuable on 
 that account. Bearing all this in mind, let us look 
 at some of them. 
 
 First of all, the Bible gives us plainly to under¬ 
 stand that in heaven there shall be greater knovjledge, 
 of all kinds than we have here; and if that be so, 
 there must be recognition there. It tells us that 
 here “ we know in part, and we prophesy in part; 
 but when that which is perfect is come, then that 
 which is in part shall be done away.” Paul says, 
 “ When I was a child I spake as a child, I understood 
 as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a 
 man I put away childish things; ” and he gives us 
 plainly to understand that heaven, as compared with 
 earth, will be the age of manhood in contrast with 
 childhood. Still more explicitly he says—“ Now we 
 see through a glass darkly; but then face to face; 
 
 M 
 
178 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 now I know in part, but then shall I know even as 
 also I am known” (1 Cor. xiii. 9—13). 
 
 The object and purport of such words are very 
 plain. The Apostle wishes to contrast our future 
 with our present. Here our knowledge is partial, 
 and incomplete, and imperfect. It is only the 
 knowledge of a child. It is as different from what 
 shall be, as the reflection of an object in a mirror 
 in a dim and indistinct light is different from the 
 object itself; or as the full knowledge of manhood 
 is from the elementary attainments of the benches 
 of an infant school. Instead, therefore, of losing 
 any knowledge which we have here, we may justly 
 expect to have our stock immensely increased in the 
 future. I believe we shall know the Bible better 
 in the world to come than ever we could do here. 
 We shall discover meanings and depths in it of 
 which we are now quite unaware, and many diffi¬ 
 culties in it, which now sometimes puzzle us, shall 
 disappear. Not only so, but it may be expected 
 that we shall know the whole universe better. Is 
 it conceivable, then, that while going on to gain 
 knowledge of other kinds, we shall lose our present 
 knowledge of one another ? “ It is a question,” says 
 
 Richard Baxter, “ with some whether we shall know 
 each other in heaven or no. Surely there shall no 
 knowledge cease which now we have, but only that 
 which implieth our imperfection. And what imper¬ 
 fection can this imply ? Nay, our present know¬ 
 ledge shall be increased beyond belief. It shall 
 
Do they know one another in Heaven f 179 
 
 indeed be done away, but as the light of the candle 
 and stars is done away by the rising sun, which is 
 more properly a doing away of our ignorance than 
 our knowledge.” 1 
 
 There was a rough philosophy in the answer of 
 an old Welsh minister to his wife on this subject. 
 She was sitting in his study one evening while he 
 prepared a sermon, and suddenly, her thoughts 
 breaking out into words, she interrupted him with 
 the question : “ John Evans, do you think we shall 
 know each other in heaven ? ” “ To be sure we 
 
 shall,” was the somewhat blunt reply. “Do you 
 think we shall be greater fools there than we are 
 here ? ” 
 
 Again, the Bible plainly teaches that there shall 
 be greater love in heaven than there is here; and 
 if that be so, there must be recognition. Look at 
 the thirteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the 
 Corinthians. It is one sustained and sublime eulogy 
 of love. Paul penned many noble words in his day; 
 words which live in history and linger in the 
 memory; words which mould our life, comfort us 
 at death, and translate us before the time into the 
 ecstasies of eternity. But never does he write 
 more magnificently than when he here tells the pre¬ 
 eminent excellence of love. He says that, if we do 
 not possess it, though we may speak with the 
 tongues of men and angels, we are only as sounding 
 brass or a tinkling cymbal. We may be clearest- 
 
 1 The Saint’s Best. 
 
180 
 
 Beyond the Stars . 
 
 visioned prophets, with such insight as shall pierce 
 quickly to the core of all mysteries, yea, we may 
 have the highest type and strongest style of faith; 
 but all will be of no use without love. We may 
 strip ourselves of every possession for the sake of 
 the poor, may march unblenching to the martyr’s 
 stake; yet, if there be no true fire of love glow¬ 
 ing on the altar of our souls, it will advantage us 
 nothing. Faith is good. Hope is infinitely precious. 
 But of the three divine sisters, Faith, Hope, and 
 Love, by far the divinest is Love. As it is the 
 divinest, so it will be the most permanent. Pro¬ 
 phecies shall fail. Tongues shall cease. Our 
 present imperfect earthly knowledge shall vanish 
 away. But love shall abide for ever, purer, stronger, 
 brighter in heaven than ever it was or could be on 
 earth. 
 
 Southey sings as sweetly as truly,— 
 
 “ They sin who tell us love can die ; 
 
 With life all other passions fly, 
 
 All others are but vanity. 
 
 In heaven ambition cannot dwell, 
 
 Nor avarice in the vaults of hell. 
 
 Earthly these passions of the earth, 
 
 They perish where they have their birth. 
 But love is indestructible ; 
 
 Its holy flame for ever burnetii: 
 
 From heaven it came, to heaven returnetli. 
 Too oft on earth a troubled guest, 
 
 At times deceived, at times oppressed, 
 
 It here is tried and purified, 
 
 Then hath in heaven its perfect rest. 
 
 It soweth here in toil and care, 
 
 But the harvest time of love is there.” 
 
Do they know one another in Heaven ? 181 
 
 Now, how should we be able to love each other 
 in heaven without recognition ? How can I love a 
 man whom I do not know ? 
 
 You loved that dear one, gentle reader, whom 
 God lately took from you. How often you used to 
 say—“ Ah, if she were taken from me, I could not 
 live! ” But she was taken. You remember the 
 hours of weary watching by her bedside— 
 
 “ As through her breast the wave of life 
 Kept heaving to and fro.” 
 
 The scene is fresh in your recollection as yester¬ 
 day. You remember when the doctor told you 
 she must die. The words smote you like a hammer. 
 You were as one that dreamed. Could it be true ? 
 Yes, alas ! too true. You can recall the ashy pallor 
 that crept over her face as you sat watching—how 
 the breathing grew difficult and fainter—the death- 
 rattle came into the throat—there was a quiver, and 
 in a little all was over. You loved her! Do you 
 think when you meet her again you will not love 
 her any more ? Do you think that you will not 
 even know her ? Impossible as long as human 
 nature continues what it is, as long as these words 
 live—“ Love never faileth ! ” 
 
 Once more, the Bible plainly tells us that memory 
 will survive in the future state, and, if it does, there 
 must be recognition. Three stages of that future 
 life are described to us in Scripture. First there is 
 Judgment. That memory will be in full exercise 
 
182 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 there is plain. “ Every one of us shall give account 
 of himself to God” (Rom. xiv. 12). But how shall 
 we he able to give this account of all the deeds 
 done in the body unless we remember them ? We 
 shall remember them, and not only remember them, 
 but memory will be then sharpened and intensified 
 to a degree beyond anything we ever knew on earth, 
 so that not an idle word spoken here below, or an 
 evil thought indulged, much less a wicked deed 
 perpetrated, shall escape its keen search. It is said 
 that a drowning man, in the few moments of con¬ 
 sciousness which supervene before he sinks into the 
 dull oblivion of death, sees his whole past life 
 flash before his mind with the rapidity and vivid¬ 
 ness of lightning. Perhaps there may be some¬ 
 thing similar before the Great White Throne. At 
 all events, it is clear that memory shall there be 
 clear and full. So will it be in hell. No one can 
 read that awful scene described in Luke xvi., where 
 Abraham sounds in the ears of the tortured Dives 
 those knell-like words — “ Son, remember,” or can 
 hear his dismal story of the five brethren whom he 
 left behind on earth, and for whom even in hell he 
 feels a keen but unavailing solicitude, without being 
 sure that whatever else is lost in the dismal realms 
 of despair, memory still survives unimpaired. 
 
 “ But,” says some one, “ that story of Dives and 
 Lazarus is only a parable, and no argument should 
 be built on a parable.” Will you be surprised to be 
 asked — Are you quite sure that the story is a 
 
Do they knoiv one another in Heaven ? 183 
 
 parable ? Probably you have always understood it 
 to be; but, of course, you require better ground for 
 your belief than that. Perhaps you imagine it is 
 somewhere represented as a parable in Scripture. 
 But it is not. Neither our Lord Himself nor the 
 evangelist who records it calls it a parable. It is not 
 introduced by any such parabolic formula as “ He 
 spake a parable unto them to this end;” nor is there 
 any sort of hint given that it is not real history. 
 Most certainly the onus of impeaching its historical 
 reality lies on those who refuse to accept its state¬ 
 ments as literally true, and perhaps they will find 
 more difficulty in the task than they imagine. 
 Calvin and many other expositors look upon it as an 
 actual story of real life. 
 
 Even if it be a parable, do parables designedly 
 teach falsehood ? Are they untrue to fact ? 
 
 It concerns us more, however, to know that there 
 is memory also in heaven. Eortunately there can 
 be no doubt upon this point. What is the song that 
 the redeemed are represented as singing there ? 
 “Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our 
 sins in His blood! 55 Surely memory is implied 
 there—the memory of the love of Jesus and of His 
 great mercy in saving them from sin. Another 
 picture in the Book of Eevelation points in the same 
 direction. We read there of “ the souls of them that 
 were slain for the word of God and for the testimony 
 which they held; and they cried with a loud voice, 
 saying, How long, 0 Lord, holy and true, dost Thou 
 
184 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell 
 on the. earth ? ” There is surely memory again here. 
 The point indeed hardly needs proof. It is almost 
 inconceivable that in that bright world every one 
 should be— 
 
 ‘ ‘ To dumb forgetfulness a prey, ” 
 
 and should have no recollection whatever of the life 
 led on earth. It is clear on all grounds that such is 
 not and cannot be the case. 
 
 Now, if there is memory in heaven, and that 
 memory strengthened beyond anything that we have 
 any experience of here, how is it possible that the 
 saints shall not know one another ? If, 0 mother, 
 you will remember in glory the looks, and the fond 
 loving ways, which the little one taken from you by 
 death used to have on earth, will you not recognise 
 that little one again when you two meet in the 
 golden street ? Surely you must and will. 
 
 There is one expression constantly recurring in the 
 Old Testament which seems plainly to imply inter¬ 
 course, and therefore recognition, in heaven. I refer to 
 that oft-repeated phrase, “ gathered to his fathers,” or 
 “gathered to his people.” The argument from the 
 words may not seem plain at first sight, but it becomes 
 plain as we ponder their meaning. Of Abraham we 
 read : “ Then Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in 
 a good old age, an old man, and full of years ; and was 
 gathered to his people ” (Gen. xxv. 8). Of his son 
 Isaac we are told: “ Isaac gave up the ghost, and 
 died, and was gathered unto his people, being old and 
 
Do they Iznoiv one another in Heaven ? 185 
 
 full of days: and his sons Esau and Jacob buried 
 him ” (Gen. xxxv. 29). Of Jacob it is said : “ When 
 Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he 
 gathered up his feet into the bed and yielded up the 
 ghost; and was gathered unto his people” (Gen. 
 xlix. 33). What does this so frequently repeated 
 phrase mean ? “ Oh,” you say, “ what can it mean, 
 
 but that those old patriarchs were buried in the 
 graves of their fathers, their bones laid to moulder 
 with kindred dust ? ” Well, whatever it means, 
 nothing is more certain than that it does not mean 
 that. How do we know ? By the best of all 
 evidence—the evidence of fact. Abraham was not 
 buried in the same grave as his ancestors. Ur was 
 his native place. Haran died there, and was 
 probably buried there. Terah was buried in Haran, 
 while Abraham was interred in the cave of Mach- 
 pelah. Of Isaac, again, it is expressly said, that he 
 was gathered to his people before he was buried at 
 all, while Jacob’s gathering to his people took place 
 immediately after his death. In all three cases it 
 is plain that the remark is not made with regard 
 to the body, but with regard to the soul, the real 
 man. If you have any lingering hesitation in accept¬ 
 ing this interpretation of the phrase, it must be swept 
 at once completely away if you look at two other 
 cases of its occurrence. It is used in connection 
 with the deaths of both Moses and Aaron. God 
 said to the former—“ Get thee up into this mountain 
 Abarim, unto Mount Nebo, which is in the land of 
 
186 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 Moab, that is over against Jericho, and behold the 
 land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of 
 Israel for a possession; and die in the mount 
 whither thou goest up, and be gathered unto thy 
 people; as Aaron thy brother died in Mount Hor, 
 and was gathered unto his people ” (Deut. xxxii. 49). 
 Now every one knows that both of these men were 
 buried in lonely graves, graves in which they were 
 the first to lie, and the last,—Moses in that mysterious 
 sepulchre which no man knoweth unto this day, 
 where, as our Irish poetess puts it,— 
 
 “The angels of God upturned the sod, 
 
 And laid the dead man there,” 
 
 and Aaron in one equally solitary on the wind¬ 
 swept summit of Mount Hor. Neither of them, 
 therefore, was buried with his fathers or kindred; 
 and, consequently, it is as plain as possible that the 
 phrase before us, whatever it means, cannot refer to 
 the disposal of the bodily remains. It seems clearly 
 to mean, that when these good men departed this 
 life they (i.e. their spiritual part) winged their 
 flight into the spirit world, and entered into the 
 society of their kindred who had gone before them. 
 And is it to be supposed that they entered into that 
 society as strangers going into the company of 
 strangers ? Does not the expression plainly convey 
 the meaning to him who can see beneath the surface, 
 that they entered into the fellowship of departed 
 friends, knowing them and known by them ? 
 
Do they knoiv one another in Heaven f 187 
 
 That such, at all events, was the confident belief 
 of those old patriarchs themselves seems perfectly 
 evident. When Joseph’s brothers brought Jacob the 
 lying news of his death, the old man said: “ I will 
 go down unto Sheol (the spirit world) unto my son 
 mourning” (Gen. xxxvii. 35, E.Y.). It is plain that 
 the broken-hearted father did not refer to burial, to 
 lying in the same grave with his child, both from 
 the word that he used, a word not signifying “ grave,” 
 as it is rendered in the Authorized Version, but 
 Sheol or the spirit world, as the Revised Version 
 translates it, and also from the fact that, according 
 to the heartless story brought to Jacob, Joseph was 
 neither buried nor likely to be buried at all, since 
 the report was that he had been devoured by some 
 wild beast. Clearly the only comfort that the father 
 could lay hold of lay in the thought of meeting and 
 seeing his child again— 
 
 “Where the wicked cease from troubling, 
 
 And the weary are at rest.” 
 
 Similarly, when David lost his baby, his consola¬ 
 tion was: “I shall go to him” (2 Sam. xii. 19), i.e. 
 in the other world. The comfort of both bereaved 
 parents was just the comfort that is offered to 
 bereaved parents still—that they and their children 
 should be together again, together again, of course, 
 in full knowledge of each other. 
 
 There are two singularly fine poetical passages 
 in the Old Testament which one may quote, not so 
 
188 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 much for the purpose of proving the doctrine before 
 us, as of showing how universally the idea of re¬ 
 cognition in the future world was entertained among 
 the Jews. Both refer, not to the case of those 
 happy souls with whom in this work we are specially 
 concerned, but to tenants of the realms of woe. 
 But what applies to one applies mutatis mutandis 
 to the others. One of these pictures is given us 
 by Isaiah, and is one of the grimmest and weirdest 
 pieces of word-painting to be found even in his 
 great book. It refers to the king of Babylon. 
 He is represented as dead, and just entering the 
 land of shades. The prophet-poet says : “ Hell from 
 beneath is moved for thee, to meet thee at thy com¬ 
 ing: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the 
 chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their 
 thrones all the kings of the nations. All they shall 
 speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak 
 as we ? art thou become like unto us ? Thy pomp 
 is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy 
 viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms 
 cover thee. How art thou fallen from heaven, 0 
 Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut 
 down to the ground, who didst weaken the nations! 
 . . . They that see thee shall narrowly look upon 
 thee, and consider thee, saying: Is this the man that 
 made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms; 
 that made the world as a wilderness ? ” (Isa. xiv. 
 9-16). No doubt about the recognition there! 
 
 The other picture is from the pen of Ezekiel, and 
 
Do they know one another in Heaven f 189 
 
 resembles Isaiah’s not a little. He says : “ The strong 
 among the mighty shall speak to him out of the 
 midst of hell with them that help him: they are gone 
 down, they lie uncircumcised, slain by the sword; ” 
 and then follows a wonderfully graphic and minute 
 description of the denizens of that strange place. The 
 whole passage is to be found in Ezek. xxxii. 21, and 
 will well repay perusal. Its bearing on our subject 
 is similar to that of the quotation just referred to. 
 
 Let us now glance at the teaching of some plain 
 passages in the New Testament, in addition to those 
 previously adduced. Already we have looked at 
 various places in it which speak of the knowledge 
 that will be in heaven, and the love, and the 
 memory, and drawn our conclusions therefrom. 
 But there are many other passages in which it is 
 referred to. Among the rest, the account of the 
 Transfiguration deserves notice. We are told that 
 Jesus “took Peter, and John, and James, and went 
 up into a mountain to pray. And, as He prayed, 
 the fashion of His countenance was altered, and 
 His raiment was white and glistering. And, behold, 
 there talked with Him two men, who were Moses 
 and Elias, who appeared in glory, and spake of His 
 decease which He should accomplish at Jerusalem ” 
 (Luke ix. 28). It has often been noticed how on 
 this mountain-top the Law, the Prophets, and the 
 Gospel met together. Moses represented the first 
 Elijah the second, and our Lord the third. What 
 is more to our present purpose, however, we have 
 
190 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 here three inhabitants of the heavenly world meet¬ 
 ing, recognising one another, conversing together. 
 Moreover, one of those three is a disembodied 
 spirit, for it is not to be supposed that the corpse 
 of Moses was raised from the grave for the occasion, 
 while another was a man just as he had lived on 
 earth, Elijah having been snatched up directly thence, 
 without undergoing the pangs of dissolution. Now, 
 at present all the saints in glory except a few are 
 disembodied spirits. But by and by, when the 
 resurrection has taken place, all will be in the body 
 again. In this Transfiguration scene we have both 
 classes represented, and it is noteworthy that not¬ 
 withstanding the difference between the pure spirit 
 and the man, body, soul, and spirit, there is no 
 difficulty suggested as to mutual recognition or 
 intercourse. Have we not here a little bit of heaven 
 brought down to earth for a brief interval, showing 
 us something of what its society is like ? 
 
 Luke gives us a pregnant saying of our Lord 
 which gives us another quick, brief glimpse into 
 the realms of glory: “ I say unto you, make to 
 yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteous¬ 
 ness, that, when ye fail, they may receive you into 
 everlasting habitations.” What is the meaning of 
 this verse ? Apparently this: “ the mammon of 
 unrighteousness ” is money. It is too often devoted 
 to the promotion of unrighteousness, and hence it is 
 here coupled with it. But with this money we 
 may, if we will, make for ourselves friends who, 
 
Do they knoiv one another in Heaven ? 191 
 
 when we die, will be waiting at the portals of 
 heaven to welcome us to our home. How ? Why, 
 if, instead of spending all our money on self-grati¬ 
 fication, instead of hoarding it up, we so use it 
 in the promotion of Christian work that souls 
 are reclaimed from sin and “made meet for the 
 inheritance of the saints in light,” we become the 
 means of peopling the “ everlasting habitations ” 
 with tenants who have reason to regard us as their 
 truest friends. You build a church, let us suppose, 
 with some of the wealth which God has given you. 
 Your “ mammon ” thus becomes the instrument of 
 gathering souls to the Eedeemer. The Gospel 
 preached within the hallowed walls draws them, 
 and your money was at the foundation of the enter¬ 
 prise. So they pass into heaven, and in eternity 
 they await your coming. You have been their 
 friend, and they have been made your friends by 
 your wise use of your means. Or look at a case 
 of a smaller kind. You expend a few shillings on 
 the purchase of religious hooks, and expend some of 
 your time in their distribution. By means of one 
 of them a soul is gained for the Lord, and hails you 
 as, under God, his deliverer. He dies, and by and 
 by you follow him into the spirit world. When you 
 yourself by and by wing your flight home, he is 
 waiting to “ receive you into everlasting habitations.” 
 Will there not be recognition between him and you ? 
 How can he welcome and thank you if he does not 
 recognise you ? 
 
192 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 Is not the doctrine of recognition most plainly 
 implied again in that sublime passage which has, by 
 the side of so many an open grave, brought comfort 
 to the mourning heart: “ I would not have you to 
 be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are 
 asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others who have 
 no hope; for if we believe that Jesus died, and rose 
 again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will 
 God bring with Him ” ? What comfort would there 
 be in God bringing back His sleepers from the grave, 
 if, when we and they met at His throne, neither 
 knew that the other was there ? Does not the 
 essence of the consolation here preached lie in the 
 seeing of our friends and the recognising of them 
 as alive again, and in the prospect of an everlasting, 
 uninterrupted fellowship with them ? 
 
 The Scriptures seem, indeed, to have one voice, 
 and only one, on this subject. Old Testament and 
 Hew, prophets and apostles and our Master Himself, 
 speak the same language regarding it. All tell us 
 in the plainest terms that in heaven, far from not 
 knowing each other, we shall know with a more 
 intimate, clear-sighted knowledge than ever we had 
 on earth. The yearnings of our own hearts and 
 our instinctive feelings had prepared us for such a 
 revelation. It fills up that which was wanting for us, 
 and we are comforted to learn from the sure word of 
 prophecy what otherwise we might only have guessed, 
 that we and our beloved shall not be strangers above, 
 but shall “know even as also we are known.” 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Common ©bjecttons to tfje Doctrine of 
 Eecoguitton in SJeaijcn. 
 
 N 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 COMMON OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE OF 
 RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 
 
 TTARIOUS objections have been urged against 
 * the doctrine of recognition in heaven, some of 
 them of greater and some of less force; while some 
 that have been brought forward are speedily found 
 on examination to have no force at all. It is right 
 that we should look these objections fairly in the 
 face. They perplex some people, and prevent their 
 enjoying, as they should, the delightful prospect of 
 meeting and holding intercourse with their friends 
 above. And they perhaps affect a still larger 
 number who have never taken the trouble to 
 acquaint themselves accurately either with the 
 nature of the objections or with the replies which 
 have been made to them, by remaining in a shadowy, 
 undefined, unexamined form to darken their outlook 
 into the great future. Let us, therefore, see what 
 such objections really amount to, and how far they 
 are entitled to militate against the reception of the 
 truth we have been considering. 
 
 195 
 
196 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 Perhaps it may be well to remark before doing so, 
 that the mere fact of objections having been raised 
 against this doctrine is no reason for rejecting it. 
 If we are to abandon every belief which has been 
 objected to, our creed will be indeed scanty. I do 
 not know any Scripture doctrine whatever to which 
 objections have not been made. Even the most 
 fundamental articles of the faith have had difficulties 
 in the way of their reception started. The doctrines 
 of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Resurrection of 
 Christ, our own Resurrection,—all these have had 
 objections urged against them. But you do not 
 therefore give them up, even although you cannot in 
 every case completely meet the objector or explain 
 away the difficulties which he suggests. You are 
 still as convinced as you are of your own existence 
 of the truth of every one of the doctrines I have 
 mentioned. You feel that you have sufficient proof 
 of them to entitle, nay, to compel you to hold them. 
 The mere fact, therefore, that objections can be and 
 have been raised to a doctrine, objections which, it 
 may be, are weighty and strong, is not a sufficient 
 reason for refusing to accept it. Even though you 
 may not be able to dispose of them completely, you 
 may yet be obliged to cling to it by the strength of 
 its proofs. 
 
 The question in all such cases is, Are the objections 
 of such weight and character as to render it impos¬ 
 sible to hold the doctrine against which they are 
 urged? Do they outweigh the evidences and proofs? 
 
Objections to Doctrine of Recognition. 197 
 
 Placing these in one scale and the objections in the 
 other, how does the beam stand ? Let ns see how 
 this is as regards the matter now before us. 
 
 1. It is sometimes objected to the doctrine of 
 recognition in heaven, that the body will be so 
 changed at the resurrection as to render mutual 
 recognition thereafter impossible. 
 
 Now, of course, our bodies will be changed, greatly 
 changed, at the resurrection. That is the plain 
 teaching of Scripture. “We shall not all sleep, but 
 we shall all be changed” (1 Cor. xv. 51). “The 
 dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be 
 changed ” (1 Cor. xv. 52). But the point to be settled 
 is, what will be the character and extent of this 
 change ? Will it be such as to alter the features, to 
 interfere with the general aspect, to make the person 
 unrecognisable ? Unless this is to be the case, 
 obviously the argument based upon it proves nothing. 
 It is fortunate that we can answer the question now 
 put, and tell what is to be the character and extent 
 of the change which will supervene at the resur¬ 
 rection. Our vile body shall be changed, “ that it 
 may be fashioned like unto His glorious body ” (Phil, 
 iii. 21). “If we have been planted together in the 
 likeness of His death, we shall be also in the like¬ 
 ness of His resurrection ” (Eom. vi. 5). “We shall 
 be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is ” (1 
 John iii. 2). Frequently and plainly this coming 
 change is so described. The question then is, what 
 was Christ’s resurrection body like ? It is the 
 
198 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 pattern after which our resurrection bodies are to 
 be modelled. What change passed over it after 
 His rising from Joseph’s grave ? Well, He was 
 certainly the same Christ after as before. For 
 forty days did He not go about among the disciples 
 talking to them as He used to do ? Did He not 
 eat with them, and appear and behave as He had 
 always done ? Did they not hear the same voice ? 
 Did they not see the same face ? Indeed, to con¬ 
 vince them that He was the same, did He not 
 allow them to handle Him, to put their fingers into 
 the prints of the nails, and their hands into His 
 wounded side ? 
 
 Perhaps you say you are not quite so sure that 
 He wore the same appearance after the resurrection 
 as before. You remind me, possibly, of some inci¬ 
 dents which you think bear a different construction. 
 You tell me of that evening of which it is said: 
 “ Then the same day at evening, being the first day 
 of the week, when the doors were shut where the 
 disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came 
 Jesus, and stood in their midst, and saith unto them: 
 Peace be unto you” (John xx. 19). You say His 
 body must have become altogether different from 
 what it was before He died, when closed doors 
 proved no barriers to its progress, when it passed 
 through them without difficulty into the room where 
 the disciples were. 
 
 Are you just so sure that that is the correct 
 account of what occurred ? Your idea is that the 
 
Objections to Doctrine of Recognition. 199 
 
 object of the evangelist in bis description is to 
 convey an idea of the mysterious way in which Jesus 
 entered that room, that He came in in spite of the 
 closed doors. But that does not seem to be his 
 object at all. What he wishes to convey is, not the 
 way in which Christ came into the room, but the 
 time at which He entered it. It was evening, and 
 the doors were shut to give the disciples a sense of 
 security. But they were not so shut that they could 
 not be opened, and nothing is said in the passage as 
 to the Lord coming in in spite of them or through 
 them—nothing whatever. Such an idea is a mere 
 gloss of our own. It is not in the record. 
 
 Well, you say, granting that, it is clear that Mary 
 Magdalene did not know Him in the garden, after 
 the resurrection, though she had been well acquainted 
 with Him for years. She mistook Him for the 
 gardener. Evidently a great change must have 
 passed over His appearance when that could be so. 
 How, did you ever read over carefully and attentively 
 the passage in which we have this statement about 
 Mary Magdalene not knowing Jesus ? If you did, 
 and marked the various points in it, you will not 
 long hold by the interpretation now referred to. Eirst, 
 Mary Magdalene came into the garden that morning 
 “ early, while it was yet dark.” The sun had not 
 risen. Night and day were still struggling for the 
 mastery when she passed through the gate and 
 paced along the walk which led to the grave. Is it 
 very surprising that in that dim, uncertain light, that 
 
200 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 dark hour before the dawn, she did not recognise 
 Jesus till He spoke ? Would you or I have done 
 so ? Again, do you notice how it is said, “ she turned 
 herself,” when He spoke to her; and when she had 
 turned herself she knew Him ? Does not this imply 
 that before she had not been looking directly at 
 Him, that she had been looking sideways, or perhaps 
 not looking at all ? Is it remarkable that in that 
 position and in that light she failed to see who was 
 speaking to her ? Thirdly, we are told that she 
 supposed Him to be the gardener. This seems to 
 complete the proof that she had not really seen the 
 person to whom she was speaking; for does any one 
 suppose that the change made by the resurrection on 
 our blessed Lord had the effect of altering His Divine 
 features into a resemblance to those of a common 
 working-man ? The whole passage only needs to be 
 attentively studied, and the effect of each detail to 
 be calculated, to show us clearly that the conclusion 
 drawm from it by some as to the complete alteration 
 made by the resurrection on the appearance of our 
 Lord is quite untenable. 
 
 Possibly, however, you remind me of another 
 occasion, in broad daylight, when two of Christ’s 
 intimate associates walked with Him after the resur¬ 
 rection, and failed to recognise Him all the time. 
 I refer, of course, to the walk to Emmaus on the 
 evening of the same day to which we have just 
 referred—the evening of the resurrection Sabbath. 
 It is said that, as they walked along, Jesus came to 
 
Objections to Doctrine of Recognition. 201 
 
 them and joined them in their walk, but “ they knew 
 not that it was Jesus.” Here, you say, is it not 
 proved that He was changed, when these two in open 
 day could not recognise Him ? But will you notice 
 that the reason why they did not recognise Him is 
 expressly given us, and it is not your reason at all. 
 It is plainly said—“ Their eyes were holden, so that 
 they did not know Him.” This explains all. They 
 were supernaturally prevented from recognising Him. 
 Had they been left to themselves, they would have 
 done so. But “ their eyes were holden.” 
 
 We have the fullest discussion of the change which 
 the body will undergo at the resurrection in the 
 fifteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corin¬ 
 thians. St. Paul there deals at length with the 
 whole subject of the future body, seeking to answer 
 such questions as these—Can the dead be raised up 
 with bodies fitted for a spiritual world ? What sort 
 of bodies will these be ? Will they be the same as 
 we have now, or what will they be like ? In a word, 
 to use his own language, “ How are the dead raised 
 up, and with what body do they come ? ” If we 
 attend to the answers which he gives to these queries, 
 we shall be able to see for ourselves the nature of 
 the resurrection body, and consequently shall be able 
 to judge whether it will be so different from the 
 present as to render recognition impossible. 
 
 Now St. Paul certainly teaches very plainly that 
 the resurrection body will be different from that which 
 we have now. Using as an illustration a grain of 
 
202 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 seed-corn, he says, “ Thou fool, that which thou sowest 
 is not quickened except it die. And that which thou 
 sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but 
 bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other 
 grain; but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased 
 Him, and to every seed his own body. ... So also is 
 the resurrection of the dead” (1 Cor. xv. 36, etc.). 
 In other words, what springs up is very different 
 from what you sow. You sow a little hard brown 
 seed; there issues from the soil a beautiful soft 
 green shoot. So you lay in the earth a corpse, dead, 
 cold, passionless; there will rise from the same earth 
 something very different. In both cases “ thou sowest 
 not that body that shall be, but God giveth it a body 
 as it hath pleased Him; ” and the body which He 
 gives, both to the grain and to the man, differs enor¬ 
 mously from that out of and in place of which it 
 springs. Paul puts this so plainly that there is 
 no possibility of misunderstanding him. Whatever 
 we may not know about the future, of this we are 
 assured by his words, that when the graves open at 
 the Great Day there 'will come forth from them 
 something very different indeed from what you left 
 there when the sexton shovelled in the earth over the 
 coffin lid. The stalk of corn does not differ more 
 from the pickle of oats than the body which will rise 
 from the grave will differ from that which was put in. 
 
 Precisely so, argues the supposed objector to the 
 doctrine of recognition, and hence my objection. If 
 there is to be such a difference between the body 
 
Objections to Doctrine of Recognition. 203 
 
 which my weeping friends will lay in the grave and 
 that which shall meet their eyes when the solemn 
 trump sounds to call me forth to Judgment, how will 
 there be the possibility of recognition ? If I am to 
 differ from my present self as much as the green 
 corn-stalk differs from the brown hard corn-seed, 
 how shall I know myself or perceive my own identity, 
 much more how shall others know me ? 
 
 The Apostle, it is to be noticed, meets this objection. 
 He has said, “God giveth it a body as it hath 
 pleased Him.” To meet the painful misgiving which 
 he foresees this statement might suggest, he adds, 
 “ and to every seed his own body.” “ It is to be such 
 a body as God may be pleased to give, but still it is 
 to be 4 his own body.’ It is to be a body which the 
 individual himself, and all who knew him, may and 
 must recognise as his own. It will be changed from 
 what it was when the tomb received it—weak, wasted, 
 worn. It will wear the bloom of summer life, instead 
 of the cold wintry deadness of the ‘ bare grain.’ It 
 will not, however, be so changed but that the instinct 
 of conscience will feel it to be the body in which 
 the deeds of this life were done. It will not be so 
 changed but that the eye of affection will perceive it 
 to be the very form on whose clay-cold lips, years or 
 ages ago, it imprinted the last long kiss of fondness.” 1 
 
 Perhaps you say you cannot exactly understand 
 this. It seems to you inexplicable that there shall 
 be such a difference between the body at the resur- 
 1 Life in the Risen Saviour, by R. S. Candlish, D.D., 167. 
 
204 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 rection and the body now, and yet the two identical, 
 and the one recognisable by a person who only knew 
 the other. Now, as to the identity there is no 
 difficulty whatever. My identity does not depend 
 upon my body always consisting of precisely the same 
 particles of matter. Even during life the matter com¬ 
 posing our bodies is in a constant state of change. 
 The processes of waste and repair are incessantly going 
 on, parts of the system being cast off and others added, 
 so that, it is said, you have now completely lost the 
 body which you had seven years ago; you are inha¬ 
 biting a different body altogether, and in seven years 
 more, if you live so long, shall be inhabiting another, 
 different again. Yet you are the same man that you 
 were seven years ago. You have not lost your identity, 
 nor will you have lost it seven years hence. Several 
 times in these discussions the fact has been insisted 
 on that the soul is the man—that the body is the 
 mere clothing or house. The soul does not decay, or 
 die, or require renewal like the body, and, it being the 
 same always, I am the same; I preserve my identity 
 unchanged. So at the resurrection, although “ we 
 shall be changed,” wondrously, completely changed, 
 yet our identity will be unaltered; we shall be the 
 same persons that we are now. The continuity of 
 our lives shall be unbroken, because it will be the 
 same immortal souls that shall return to the bodies 
 from which they came out at death. 
 
 The difficulty of recognition by others, in the face of 
 such a change as St. Paul describes, may seem greater. 
 
Objections to Doctrine of Recognition. 205 
 
 But everything evidently depends upon the nature of 
 that change which, he tells us, is to occur. Will it 
 be a change in the form and appearance of our 
 bodies ? If so, then the difficulty is indeed great. 
 Or is it to be a change of nature—a change which, 
 while it will preserve the form and features, will 
 alter, as it were, the inner texture of the man, 
 change, too, all his requirements, and make him, 
 while apparently the same, and in reality the same, 
 yet different altogether. In a word, does St. Paul 
 say there is to be any change of form or feature ? 
 Everything depends on this. 
 
 Let us hear precisely what he says. For he does 
 not leave us to conjecture wherein the change 
 consists. He describes it minutely: “ It is sown 
 in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is 
 sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory. It is sown 
 in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a 
 natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.” There 
 is his description of the change. What is the 
 precise meaning of his words ? 
 
 Plainly, they tell us that there are three attributes 
 of our present bodies which will be conspicuous by 
 their absence after the resurrection. Those three 
 are corruption, dishonour, and weakness. Not only 
 will these three things be absent, but their places 
 will be taken by their extreme opposites. Corrup¬ 
 tion will give place to incorruption, dishonour to 
 glory, weakness to power. The “ natural body ” is 
 characterized by the presence of the former; but the 
 
206 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 resurrection body will be a “ spiritual body,” and will 
 be characterized by the presence of the latter. The 
 resurrection body will never die. It will have none 
 of the elements of shame which cling now to the 
 fairest form, and make us instinctively wrap it up 
 from view. It will be beautiful, fair to look upon, 
 and this attractive outside will not mask uglinesses 
 lying within, which now give truth to the proverb 
 that beauty is but skin deep. It will be “ all glorious 
 within.” Nor will its beauty be mere physical 
 beauty, which, as we know, may now coexist with 
 the most utter vileness of nature. The beauty will 
 be moral and spiritual as well as physical. As one 
 has said, “ Nothing that can offend the most fastidious 
 taste, nothing that can suggest by the remotest hint 
 any thought, even the slightest, any idea, even the 
 faintest, of impurity or shame, nothing that can ever 
 cause a blush upon the countenance, nothing for 
 which the conscious bosom need ever heave a sigh, 
 nothing to disgust, nothing to repel, no latent sore 
 or sickness soon to lie too open, no secret germ of 
 what, when it comes out, may make the eye of 
 tenderest love fain to look away, nothing of all that 
 hidden corrosive poison which mars earth’s brightest 
 beauty, will be found in that body which, ‘ sown in 
 dishonour, is raised in glory.’ ” 1 
 
 Then how signally will it be freed from the weak¬ 
 ness which is now such a clog upon the wheels of 
 our progress! It will never be tired, never sick, 
 
 1 Candlish, ut supra, 190. 
 
Objections to Doctrine of Recognition. 207 
 
 will never need to pause in its activities to recruit 
 its exhausted energies, and shall never be deprived 
 of those energies by violence or subtlety. On the 
 contrary, all its powers will be enlarged and its 
 activities accelerated, and its capacities enlarged 
 beyond our utmost conception. 
 
 The Apostle, it will be seen, sums up the difference 
 between the two bodies in a word by saying that the 
 one, the present, is “ a natural body; ” the other, the 
 future, will be “ a spiritual body.” Now what do 
 these terms exactly import ? It is comparatively 
 easy to see what the former means. The natural 
 body plainly signifies such a body as we have now, 
 and as St. Paul has just described, a body which he 
 has shown to be corrupt, dishonourable, and weak. 
 This awfia ^v^ucov is simply a body suited to the 
 natural life which is lived on earth. In olden times 
 they spoke of man as being compounded of three 
 elements, “ body, soul, and spirit,” viz. the corporeal 
 nature of flesh and blood and bones, the aw/ia which 
 he has in common with the lower creation; the vital 
 principle or animating this body, which he has 
 
 also in common with the brutes; and the 7 Tved/ia, or 
 mental and spiritual nature, which distinguishes him 
 from, and raises him above, the lower animals. Now, 
 our present body is a o-twyaa tyv^ucov. In other words, 
 it is a body specially adapted to this lower earthly 
 life. It is fearfully and wonderfully made, and en¬ 
 dowed with marvellous powers and great capacities. 
 No one looking at it, studying the nice adaptations of 
 
208 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 part to part, and of the various organs to the 
 purposes which they were intended to subserve, 
 can doubt that the hand that made it is Divine. 
 But the same can be said, with the same truth, of 
 the bodies of the beasts that perish, so that in this 
 respect there is no distinction between us and them. 
 Moreover, our present body is a body which mani¬ 
 fests in no indistinct way its greater affinity to the 
 animal than to the spiritual. It has two masters 
 that it must at least try to serve, the higher nature 
 and the lower. It cannot serve both at once. They 
 are so different in the demands which they make 
 so opposite, that this is impossible. “ The flesh 
 lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the 
 flesh; and these are contrary the one to the other.” 
 But it serves both alternately. Sometimes it is the 
 vehicle of the one, sometimes of the other. Some¬ 
 times it is the minister of “ thoughts that wander 
 through eternity,” sometimes the instrument of gross 
 animal passion. Sometimes we cannot help exulting 
 in the thought that we are made only a little lower 
 than the angels; sometimes we have to confess that 
 man can become only a little better than the devils. 
 Not only so, but it must be confessed that the 
 body is a far more willing and supple and facile 
 servant of the lower nature than of the higher. 
 Without any compulsion or training it lends itself to 
 the service of the former, but it always requires 
 strenuous effort to yoke it to do the bidding of the 
 latter. “ I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, 
 
Objections to Doctrine of Recognition. 209 
 
 dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with 
 me; but how to perform that which is good I find 
 not. For the good that I would I do not: but the 
 evil which I would not, that I do. ... I delight in 
 the law of God after the inward man: but I see 
 another law in my members warring against the law 
 of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law 
 of sin which is in my members.” No wonder that we 
 are so often made to feel in this way that this is the 
 “ body of our humiliation,” and that we have so often 
 to groan out, with the same Apostle who speaks in 
 the passage before us, “ Oh, wretched man that I am! 
 who shall deliver me from the body of this death ? ” 
 There will be this deliverance when the natural 
 body is changed into the spiritual body. A spiritual 
 body does not mean a body composed of spirit. 
 Paul’s whole argument forbids this supposition. It 
 is plainly to be a material body. It is to be like 
 Christ’s body, who could say, “ Handle nie and see ; 
 for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me 
 have.” Quite true it is said, “Flesh and blood 
 cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” That is ex¬ 
 plained, however, by the words which follow, 
 “ Neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.” The 
 phrase simply means the body as at present consti¬ 
 tuted. The spiritual body will be a material body, 
 but a material body inconceivably higher than our 
 present bodies. “ Let a condition of things be 
 imagined,” says a writer from whom we have already 
 
 quoted, “ in which the higher spirit in man has a 
 
 0 
 
210 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 frame as expressive of itself as the present body is of 
 the animal soul or life, of which it is the exponent. 
 For one thing, there is no more in that spiritual 
 frame any tendency to express, any power of express¬ 
 ing, the emotions of the lower nature. It has no 
 features, no gestures, no attitudes, no phraseology or 
 vocabulary for giving vent to the ideas, desires, and 
 feelings that relate to the functions of that animal 
 life which is the lower nature. Nothing remains of 
 that structure of the body which exhibits men here 
 as having appetites and passions in common with the 
 beasts. That is much. But more than that, far 
 more, I gain. I find myself in a body that in its 
 new structure is the very image of my higher intel¬ 
 lectual nature, the fitting index and expression of the 
 spiritual life which I have in common with Christ in 
 God. In and through that body, the glory and the 
 beauty of that high intelligence and spiritual life of 
 mine shine as clearly and as conspicuously as my 
 lower life reveals itself in the fashion of my present 
 frame. . . . My natural body is not only inadequate 
 as representing and explaining me, so that I cannot 
 by means of it express myself as a spiritual man; it 
 is no less inadequate as representing and explaining 
 the outer world to me. I see as through a glass 
 darkly. I hear as if a chaotic Babel of sound were 
 ringing in my ears. I cannot safely suffer my 
 bodily senses, even in the highest and purest exercise 
 of them, to minister to my spiritual life. I must 
 regard with jealousy what appeals to me through the 
 
Objections to Doctrine of Recognition. 211 
 
 eye, even when it is riveted on the purest heavenly 
 ideal that ever painter drew, and what appeals to me 
 through the ear, even when it is ravished with 
 loudest concord of heavenly harmony, or softest notes 
 of ‘ grave, sweet melody. 5 But there is a spiritual 
 body. What its senses are to be I cannot tell. How 
 it is to receive impressions from without, and present 
 these impressions to the spirit within, I know not. 
 But this at least I may be bold to affirm, it will be 
 true and faithful as that spirit’s minister, and it will 
 be apt and able too. . . . Lastly, besides being an 
 index or outlet by which the spirit in man expresses 
 itself, and an inlet or avenue by which things with¬ 
 out reach the spirit within, the body is an instru¬ 
 ment by which the spirit works. The present body 
 is so. Its various organs and members, internal and 
 external, are the tools which the higher principle of 
 spiritual intelligence and thought, as well as the 
 lower principle of animal life, may and must use. 
 The body is the spirit’s engine or machine for 
 moving the world. It is so, however, as if the 
 higher spirit got the loan of it merely from the 
 lower animal soul. It is to that lower animal soul 
 that the body at present properly belongs. It is 
 fitted for the uses of the animal life. ‘ Be fruitful 
 and multiply ; 5 ‘ I have given you food, 5 —such is the 
 original law of man’s creation in the body. And for 
 compliance with that law the natural body is con¬ 
 structed. Hence it is naturally at the disposal of 
 the lower principle of mere animal life, whose 
 
212 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 pleasure it executes and whose work it does, very 
 much as the fleshly body of a beast or a fish or a 
 bird executes the pleasure and does the work of the 
 vital principle or living soul that animates it. When 
 it has to execute the pleasure and do the work of the 
 higher principle of spiritual life, especially of the 
 highest spiritual life, the life of the Spirit of God in 
 the spirit of man, the present body is, as one might 
 say, on foreign service. No wonder it should be 
 found in such service to be a somewhat cumbrous 
 and clumsy instrument, an imperfect machine, an 
 engine apt to go wrong, to break down and need 
 repair, in the hands of the higher master, the mind, 
 which, as if by courtesy and on sufferance, wields it. 
 No wonder if that higher master often fails to wield 
 it to the best purpose. All the less wonder if, for 
 such precarious use as he has of it, the higher master 
 has to keep up a hard fight with the lower animal 
 soul, whose servant the body as now constituted 
 naturally is. But give to the spirit in man—the 
 spiritual principle which he has as redeemed by the 
 Son and renewed by the Spirit of God—a body that 
 it can call its own, and claim as its own, absolutely 
 and exclusively its own; let it have a body with 
 nothing at all of that organism which fits the 
 natural body for the functions of the animal life; 
 let it be a body wholly formed and fashioned with 
 an eye to the uses of the life that is spiritual and 
 divine,—how by means of such a spiritual body may 
 the spirit or soul which is to live that life, be able 
 
Objections to Doctrine of Recognition. 213 
 
 to realize in it its own highest ideal, and even God’s 
 highest ideal, of what is great and good ! Sleepless, 
 unfatigued, needing neither food nor rest, marrying 
 and giving in marriage no more, ‘ made like unto 
 the angels,’—with no animal wants to provide for, 
 no animal passions to gratify, no animal weaknesses 
 or wearinesses to yield to,—how may the redeemed 
 in glory, with those glorious spiritual bodies of theirs, 
 be ever plying the glad and busy task of acting out 
 in full measure the impulses of their own spiritual 
 nature, and doing all the pleasure of the Lord that 
 bought them ! ” 1 
 
 What deep meaning, and high hope, and transcend¬ 
 ent comfort are breathed in those words of the 
 apocalyptic seer which tell us of our spiritual 
 bodies—“ They shall hunger no more, neither thirst 
 any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor 
 any heat. For the Lamb, which is in the midst of 
 the throne, shall feed them, and shall lead them unto 
 living fountains of water; and God shall wipe away 
 all tears from their eyes” (Rev. vii. 16). But, great 
 as will undoubtedly be the change which will pass 
 upon our bodies at the resurrection, there is nothing 
 whatever to lead us to believe that it will be a 
 change of such a nature as to interfere with 
 recognition. 
 
 2. A second objection which is sometimes urged 
 against the doctrine of heavenly recognition is that 
 in the interval between death and the resurrection 
 
 1 Candlish, ut supra, 203. 
 
214 
 
 Beyond the Stars . 
 
 the saints are pure spirits, without bodies; and it is 
 argued that while after the resurrection, when they 
 have become embodied again, recognition may be 
 possible, it could not be until then. It will be 
 seen that this objection applies only to a portion of 
 the future. 
 
 Now it may be said at once that it is not possible 
 to explain all the mysteries of the kingdom of 
 heaven. Poor mortals cannot always say how this 
 or that is or can be done there. We know far too 
 little about the ways and the modes of life above to 
 feel ourselves entitled to dogmatize on matters con¬ 
 cerning it regarding which the Scriptures are silent. 
 What are we—what is our poor philosophy, when 
 confronted with such problems ? But it will be 
 noticed that several of the Scripture passages, which 
 we have already quoted for other purposes, expressly 
 recognise the fact that the heavenly spirits are not 
 strangers to each other even now. The fact that 
 this is so is enough for us. The mode of the fact 
 may be inexplicable; but if we know the fact, ought 
 not that to suffice us ? We must be content to wait 
 for the explanation of many things till we see no 
 longer darkly in a glass, but eye to eye and face to 
 face. Nowhere is the lesson of humility more forcibly 
 or impressively taught us than when we are engaged 
 in the attempt to understand heavenly problems. 1 
 
 1 Mr. Birks confines future recognition to the time following the 
 resurrection, making the intermediate state one of fellowship with 
 Christ alone (Victory of Divine Goodness, 60). Surely he has no 
 warrant for such a distinction. 
 
Objections to Doctrine of Recognition. 215 
 
 There is a point, however, connected with this 
 matter which it may be well to bear in mind. 
 When speaking of angels, we saw that it is by no 
 means so certain as some seem to suppose, that they 
 are essentially incorporeal beings. They have on 
 several occasions appeared on earth clothed with 
 bodies, visible bodies, and we find no statement any¬ 
 where that those bodies were merely assumed for the 
 time. Now, when we speak of the sainted spirits 
 above, it does not seem that we are compelled to 
 regard them as necessarily invisible or formless. 
 They are certainly not invisible to other spiritual 
 beings there. It may be questioned how far the 
 idea of spirit necessarily excludes all idea of form. 
 We know too little about such matters to be able to 
 pronounce upon them, too little even to enable us to 
 speculate with any degree of wisdom. But is there 
 anything to hinder the spirits of our departed friends 
 from still wearing, even in the spirit world, and while 
 themselves pure spirits, the forms and outlines which 
 they wore when living here below ? Who can say ? 
 
 3. Another objection which has sometimes been 
 expressed against the doctrine of recognition is 
 suggested by such a case as that of the woman who 
 had had seven husbands, which some of the Sadducees 
 once brought before our Lord. Their difficulty was 
 this—“ There were seven brethren: and the first 
 took a wife, and died without children. And the 
 second took her to wife, and he died childless. And 
 the third took her; and in like manner the seven 
 
216 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 also: and they left no children, and died. Last of 
 all the woman died also. Therefore in the resurrec¬ 
 tion whose wife of them is she ? for seven had her 
 to wife” (Luke xx. 29). It is said—what a difficult, 
 awkward, embarrassing case is here presented! 
 Supposing the doctrine of future recognition to be 
 true, how complicated and perplexed the situation 
 would be! Besides, we are told, did not Christ’s 
 reply on this occasion appear to indicate that we are 
 not to expect in the future world such mundane 
 things as recognition or mutual intercourse ? He 
 said to His questioners, “ The children of this world 
 marry, and are given in marriage: but they which 
 shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and 
 the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor 
 are given in marriage: neither can they die any 
 more: for they are equal unto the angels ” (Luke 
 xx. 34—36). 
 
 How we are, of course, content to abide by what 
 Christ said on this occasion, or on any occasion. 
 His word is truth. But the question is—What did 
 He say ? Well, there are some things which it is 
 clear He did not say. He did not say—after the 
 resurrection no one will know another. If He had 
 made that statement, the question under considera¬ 
 tion would have been settled for all time. But He 
 not only says no such thing, He says precisely the 
 contrary. He tells His Sadducean questioners that 
 in the future world we shall be “ as the angels of 
 God in heaven.” And do the angels of God in 
 
Objections to Doctrine of Recognition. 217 
 
 heaven not know each other ? Do all the ten 
 thousand times ten thousand and thousands of 
 thousands of the heavenly hosts go about their duties 
 solitary, unfriended, silent, alike unknowing and un¬ 
 known ? Of course not. No one could even con¬ 
 ceive that this is anything like the life of the angels. 
 What Christ says is, that in heaven there will be no 
 marriage. This is clear. On earth the most im¬ 
 portant family events are the births, the marriages, 
 and the deaths. In heaven all these will be alike 
 unknown. There will be no passing out of life, and 
 there will be no entering into life. As no grave 
 will ever close over a departed saint, so no cradle 
 will ever receive a new-born immortal. Here below, 
 society is subject to the continual operation of the 
 two counter processes of waste and repair. The 
 grave receives its victims out of our homes, and our 
 households from time to time receive fresh accessions 
 of young inhabitants. But it will not be so in the 
 world above. “ The number of the elect will be 
 accomplished ” in heaven. None shall pass out of 
 that number by death; and when once the judgment 
 is finished, none shall be added to it. The two 
 statements which our Lord here makes require to be 
 taken together. The first is—they “ neither marry 
 nor are given in marriage; ” the second—“ neither 
 can they die any more.” No provision is required 
 for keeping up their number, for that number will 
 never suffer any diminution. But if any one has 
 ever thought that there is anywhere in all this any 
 
218 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 statement that in heaven there shall be no mutual 
 recognition, we should like to know where in the 
 words such a statement is to be found. To say that 
 such a combination of relationships as would be in¬ 
 volved in such a case as these Sadducees put to our 
 Lord, would, according to our earthly ideas, involve 
 embarrassment and perplexity is one thing. Boldly 
 to cut the Gordian knot, and get rid of this embar¬ 
 rassment and perplexity by denying that any one 
 will ever recognise his neighbour any more after 
 death, is another and a very different thing, and one 
 to which our Lord certainly lent no countenance 
 either here or anywhere else. 
 
 4. Again, it is sometimes felt as a serious im¬ 
 pediment to the confident acceptance of the doctrine 
 of recognition in heaven, that if the knowledge of 
 our friends in glory would give us pleasure,—and we 
 shall be indeed changed there from what we are here 
 if it would not,—on the other hand the recognition 
 of those in heaven would imply the knowledge that 
 others whom we loved were not there; and this sense 
 of loss would produce a feeling of pain such as would 
 dim the joy of the home above. Take the case of a 
 mother. In heaven she sees around her some of her 
 children. But perhaps she misses others ; and, long 
 as she waits for their arrival, they do not come, till 
 at length the dread truth is forced upon her that 
 some of her family are never to be there, but must 
 have gone to be where God has forgotten to be 
 gracious. Perhaps there was a prodigal in the family 
 
Objections to Doctrine of Recognition. 219 
 
 He gave his mother many a sorrowful hour. But 
 still she had her hopes that one day he would come 
 to himself, and after all find his way by God’s mercy 
 into the heavenly home. Now she sees that such 
 hopes are doomed to disappointment. She and her 
 son are to be parted for ever. How is it possible, it 
 is argued, that the knowledge of this fact—how is it 
 possible that the ^reflection that a child of hers has 
 passed away into eternal suffering—should not make 
 that mother miserable and rob heaven for her of all 
 its joys ? The doctrine of recognition, therefore, we 
 are told, cuts two ways. If it involves pleasure, it 
 involves also a more than counterbalancing element 
 of pain. For this reason it is asked—Would we not 
 be better to give it up ? 
 
 If the Bible, however, teaches the doctrine of 
 recognition, we cannot give it up. Its reception 
 may involve difficulty, but if it be true we must 
 receive it notwithstanding. Just here comes in the 
 caution as to the weight to be attached to objections 
 which we ventured to suggest towards the outset of 
 our consideration of this part of the subject. A 
 doctrine may be open to objections, weighty objec¬ 
 tions, objections even which we cannot answer, and 
 yet be true all the while. 
 
 What, however, let us ask, is the precise weight 
 of the objection now referred to ? Its substance is, 
 we could not be happy in heaven if we knew that 
 some near and dear to us were in the world of woe. 
 It will be observed, however, that, supposing we 
 
220 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 could, in deference to this objection, abandon our 
 belief in the doctrine of recognition, we should thus 
 only subject ourselves to a much greater evil than 
 that which we wished to get rid of. Because, in 
 that case, we should merely substitute ignorance 
 whether any of our friends were saved, for certainty 
 that some of them were not. Now, which would be 
 worse, which would be harder to bear, which would 
 be the greater trial, the eternal ignorance whether 
 so much as one besides ourselves from our home 
 
 on earth had reached the heavenly shore, or the 
 
 * 
 
 knowledge of the worst, that some had not ? If a 
 ship has disappeared, on board of which have been 
 many whom we knew and loved; if no tidings of 
 her have ever come; if for weeks, months, years, 
 we do not know whether one of all the crew and 
 passengers has escaped,—if we are kept altogether 
 in ignorance of their fate,—is not that condition of 
 suspense regarding all felt to be tenfold worse than 
 the certainty of the loss of one or two out of the 
 number ? Do you not say, Give me anything but 
 this terrible suspense, for anything would be pre¬ 
 ferable ? Well, remember that memory, as we have 
 seen, will be in full play in heaven. We shall not 
 be able to forget there. No sweet nepenthe will 
 steep our senses. Remember this, and say if, to 
 escape the possibility of the pain arising from the 
 sense of certain loss in the case supposed, we have 
 not substituted a worse and more intolerable evil 
 in the eternal ignorance as to the fate of any 
 
Objections to Doctrine of Recognition. 221 
 
 of our loved ones which you propose to give us 
 instead. 
 
 Consider again this fact—our blessed Lord knows 
 and will know in heaven who are saved and who 
 are lost. This is beyond doubt. There are no 
 secrets to Him. Now, is your heart more tender 
 than His? Is your love greater than His, that you 
 should suppose that, while His happiness will be 
 undisturbed all through eternity by the knowledge 
 of the lost, yours will ? You do not argue that He 
 cannot recognise the saved or know of the lost, else 
 He could not be happy. And His love is as much 
 beyond the love of even the tenderest mother that 
 ever yearned over a child as heaven is higher than 
 the earth. If this is not an argument which can 
 be urged against His knowledge, can it be urged 
 against yours or mine ? 
 
 Look, again, at the case of the angels. They 
 know all about this matter,—who are saved and 
 who lost is clear to them. And their hearts are 
 full of the purest and most unselfish love. They 
 rejoice with an unspeakable joy over the repentance 
 of one sinner. Yet the angels are perfectly happy, 
 notwithstanding their knowledge of the lost. Shall 
 we set ourselves up as tenderer, more loving than 
 they ? 
 
 Archbishop Whately thought the difficulty of the 
 case was to be solved by supposing that in heaven 
 we shall have the power of abstracting our thoughts 
 from all disagreeable subjects. On earth, as we all 
 
222 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 know too well, we cannot help thinking of such 
 subjects, and too often fretting over them. We 
 dwell, indeed, as a rule, more on what is unpleasant 
 than on what is pleasant. If we have a hundred 
 blessings to make us thankful, and one trouble, 
 only one, we are sure to bethink ourselves of that 
 one trouble, and forget, in contemplating it, our 
 many mercies. We 
 
 “ Murmur when our sky is clear, 
 
 And wholly bright to view, 
 
 If only one small speck appear 
 In our great heaven of blue.” 
 
 One dead fly spoils the entire box of ointment. 
 If Whately’s idea be correct, of course the difficulty 
 now under consideration would disappear. We 
 should be able in heaven not to think of our losses. 
 
 Others have concluded that in heaven we shall 
 be so entirely conformed to the will and the ways 
 of God, that His thoughts regarding the fate of oar 
 friends will be our thoughts, so that we shall not 
 merely acquiesce in what He has done as right, but 
 feel so perfectly satisfied with it that it will be able 
 to cast no shade of sadness on our souls. This is 
 the reigning thought in the lines— 
 
 “ Fear not the prospect of the realms of woe 
 
 Shall mar thy bliss, or thence sad thoughts arise 
 To blunt thy sense of heavenly ecstasies. 
 
 There if thy heart with warm devotion glow 
 Meet for thy place, ’twill solace thee to know 
 No friend of thine ’mid those keen agonies 
 In that dark prison-house of torment lies ; 
 
 For none is there but.is of God the foe, 
 
Objections to Doctrine of Recognition. 223 
 
 An alien thing from tliee. The ties of blood 
 And earth’s most sacred bonds are but a twine 
 Of gossamer compared with what is owed 
 To Him the Lord of all! On Him recline, 
 
 He shall thy heart of every care unload, 
 
 He bid thy day with cloudless lustre shine.” 
 
 I do not know how it will be. I know two 
 things, and these suffice me. First, I am as sure 
 as the Bible can make me that I shall know as I 
 am known in the world of bliss. Second, I am 
 equally sure, on the same authority, that in that 
 world I shall be perfectly happy. As to the rest, 
 —the how and the wherefore,—can I not afford to 
 wait till I get there ? 
 
 5. Another argument is sometimes urged against 
 the doctrine of heavenly recognition. It is said 
 that the saints above will be so occupied with 
 Christ that they shall have neither time nor heart 
 for each other. It is to be supposed that that 
 pious, if somewhat narrow-minded, woman is to be 
 taken as a type of such people, who on her death¬ 
 bed, when her husband was consoling himself and 
 her with the thought that they would meet in glory, 
 replied, “ You might be for ages at my side and I 
 would never notice you. Much as I love you, I 
 will have something better to do in heaven. I will 
 have my Saviour to look at and talk with.” 
 
 Perhaps there are some who would sympathize 
 with such a sentiment; some who think it, if not 
 sinful, at all events earthly, to be anticipating 
 friendship and fellowship with other saints as 
 
224 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 among the great joys of the celestial country, who 
 would tell us that we ought to be so taken up with 
 the prospect of meeting Jesus, that other considera¬ 
 tions of this kind would not occur to us. But, 
 however one may respect the feeling from which 
 such ideas flow, with the ideas themselves no right 
 mind will have much sympathy. We shall, as we 
 have so often had occasion to insist, be men and 
 women in heaven, and this we should not be if we 
 had there no feeling for or pleasure in each other. 
 Are we not to love Christ supremely and above all 
 others even here? Is it not said of this earthly 
 life, that we are to love the Lord our God with all 
 our heart, and all our strength, and all our soul, and 
 all our mind ? Yet does it interfere with this 
 strong love of God to love our neighbour also ? 
 Interfere with it! Are we not expressly told that 
 we cannot love God without loving one another ? 
 We are to love the Lord our God with all our 
 heart, and all our soul, and all our strength, and 
 all our mind; but we are required in the self-same 
 command to love our neighbour as ourselves; and 
 we are told that whoso loveth not his brother whom 
 he hath seen cannot possibly love God whom he 
 hath not seen. “ Whoso loveth not knoweth not 
 God: for God is love,” is one of the highest 
 declarations of Holy Writ. So shall it be in 
 heaven. Certainly, towering over, and overwhelm¬ 
 ing all other loves, will be the believer’s over¬ 
 mastering love to Jesus. His song will be 
 
Objections to Doctrine of Recognition . 225 
 
 continually of Him, and his adoration continually 
 directed to “ Him that loved us, and washed us 
 from our sins in His blood.” But that love for 
 Him, instead of rendering impossible any love for 
 another, would itself be impossible without such a 
 love. We may be sure that in heaven the love for 
 Christ which would not be accompanied by a love 
 for each other, would be as incomplete and impos¬ 
 sible as it would be here on earth, God Himself 
 being witness. 
 
 None of the objections, therefore, to this doctrine 
 of heavenly recognition are of such a nature as to 
 interfere with our full belief in it, or our full 
 enjoyment, in anticipation, of the pleasure with 
 which it is fraught. You may safely reckon, 0 
 Christian, on meeting and knowing your beloved 
 again. The Bible warrants you in so doing. 
 
 “ I count the hope no day-dream of the mind, 
 
 No vision fair of transitory hue, 
 
 The souls of those whom once on earth we knew, 
 
 And loved, and walked with in communion kind, 
 Departed hence, again in heaven to find. 
 
 Such hope to nature’s sympathies is true, 
 
 And such, we deem, the Holy Word to view 
 Unfolds ; an antidote for grief designed ; 
 
 One drop from Comfort’s well. ’Tis true we read 
 The Book of Life, but if we read amiss, 
 
 By God prepared, fresh treasures shall succeed 
 To kinsmen, fellows, friends, a vast abyss 
 Of joy, nor aught the longing spirit need 
 To fill its measure of enormous bliss.” 
 
 One practical lesson we should learn from this 
 
 undoubted doctrine—we should take care what 
 
 p 
 
226 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 friendships and connections we form on earth. The 
 ungodly friendship will he quenched in the waters of 
 death. Even that closest and holiest of unions, the 
 marriage bond, will unite us only for a little, and be 
 followed by an eternal parting, unless the marriage 
 is a marriage “ in the Lord.” “ Be ye not unequally 
 yoked together with unbelievers : for what fellowship 
 hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what 
 communion hath light with darkness ? And what 
 concord hath Christ with Belial ? or what part hath 
 he that believeth with an infidel ? And what agree¬ 
 ment hath the temple of God with idols ? ” (2 Cor. 
 vi. 14). Such unions are bad for earth. What are 
 they when heaven is taken into the account ? A 
 few short years of married life together—then an 
 eternal parting ! No,— 
 
 “ If thou wouldst meet thy friends again, 
 
 Seek for them now at Jesus’ feet. 
 
 If thou wouldst bind affection’s chain, 
 
 Bind it to yonder Mercy-Seat. 
 
 If ye would be for ever one, 
 
 Be one in Christ, in Christ alone. 
 
 Then haste and make thee many friends 
 To meet thee yet in yonder skies, 
 
 And heaven for earth will make amends ; 
 
 Where tears were sown, shall sheaves arise. 
 Friendships on earth are formed to sever, 
 
 But friends in heaven are friends for ever.” 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 Betfoem T3eattj anti ttje Insurrection. 
 
 m 
 
■ 
 
CHAPTEK X. 
 
 BETWEEN DEATH AND THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 "TTTE must not forget that before the final stage of 
 * ’ happiness in heaven is reached, there will he 
 an interval, longer or shorter—very long in the case 
 of some, very short with those who die immediately 
 before the general resurrection—an interval during 
 which the spirit will be in a disembodied state. 
 The earthly remains will be in the dust, and the 
 soul will be unclothed. Now it is a very solemn 
 and important question, where and in what condition 
 will the latter he during that interval ? If our 
 arguments up to this point have been satisfactory, 
 we have a tolerably clear idea of the future state 
 after the reunion of soul and body. We have con¬ 
 sidered that state in the light of Scripture, and have 
 arrived at certain clear conclusions regarding it. 
 But how about this interval which we speak of ? 
 Where and in what condition is the soul during the 
 period between death and the resurrection ? This 
 is a different question from any of those which, in 
 the preceding pages, we have been trying to answer. 
 
 229 
 
230 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 After the Judgment all is plain. But this interval, 
 which is to be before the Judgment is set and the 
 books are opened—this interval between the moment 
 when the soul is unclothed till it is again “ clothed 
 upon with our house which is from heaven ”—this 
 time, long or short, between death and the resurrec¬ 
 tion—what of it ? Where is the soul then ? The 
 body is in the grave, where is the spirit ? 
 
 One answer is—the soul perishes along with the 
 body. When the clay tabernacle is taken down, the 
 inhabitant ceases to be. 
 
 This is the doctrine of materialism, ancient and 
 modern. According to it, the soul is a mere function 
 of the body. There is no substance except matter, 
 and no force except such as is a phenomenon of 
 matter. Thought is but as electricity. What men 
 call the soul is only a figure of speech. It has no 
 reality, any more than aquosity has a real existence 
 apart from water. Awful as such doctrine is, there 
 are men who hold it. We are but as the beasts. 
 They perish when their work is done, and so do we. 
 Let US eat and drink like them, and squeeze what 
 muddy, short-lived drops of pleasure we may out of 
 what is called life, for to-morrow we die, soul and 
 body, and there is an end of us for ever. There is 
 no resurrection. This present life is all we are to 
 have. There is no life after death. 
 
 If one were arguing with a materialist, it would 
 not be difficult to meet him on his own ground in 
 regard to these matters. He has been met there 
 
Between Death and the Resurrection . 231 
 
 over and over again, and the hollowness of his 
 arguments and assumptions exposed. But this is 
 not a hook for materialists. We proceed on the 
 basis of the Bible, and it is sufficient, therefore, for 
 our purpose to ask the question—Where in the 
 Bible is any such teaching to be found ? Is not 
 the whole of its theology based on principles which 
 are as different from such ideas as day is from 
 night ? Clearly the Apostle Paul had such intel¬ 
 lectual vagaries before his mind when he penned 
 the fifteenth chapter of his First Epistle to the 
 Corinthians. He knew all the mazes of Greek 
 philosophy, to which speculations like these were 
 not strange, and we may read his answer to them 
 in such words as these: “ If Christ be preached 
 that He rose from the dead, how say some among 
 you that there is no resurrection of the dead ? But 
 if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ 
 not risen. And if Christ be not risen, then is our 
 preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, 
 and we are found false witnesses of God; because 
 we have testified of God that He raised up Christ: 
 whom He raised not up, if so be that the dead rise 
 not. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ 
 raised: and if Christ be not raised, your faith is 
 vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also 
 which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If 
 in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of 
 all men most miserable. But now is Christ risen 
 from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them 
 
232 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 that slept. For since by man came death, by man 
 came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in 
 Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made 
 alive.” 
 
 That is one argument. Here is another— 
 
 “ What shall they do who are baptized for the 
 dead, if the dead rise not at all ? Why are they 
 then baptized for the dead ? And why stand we 
 in jeopardy every hour ? I protest by your rejoicing 
 which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily. 
 If after the manner of men I have fought with 
 beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me if the 
 dead rise not ? Let us eat and drink ; for to-morrow 
 we die.” Then he sums up his examination of this 
 cold and cheerless philosophy with the following 
 confident and sublime apostrophe—“ The trumpet 
 shall sound; and the dead shall be raised incor¬ 
 ruptible, and we shall be changed. For this cor¬ 
 ruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal 
 must put on immortality. So when this corruptible 
 shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall 
 have put on immortality, then shall be brought to 
 pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed 
 up in victory. 0 death, where is thy sting ? 0 
 
 grave, where is thy victory ? The sting of death is 
 sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks 
 be to God, who giveth us the victory through our 
 Lord Jesus Christ ” (1 Cor. xv.). Such words are 
 best left in their own peerless sublimity. One 
 thing plainly they show—that Paul had no belief 
 
Between Death and the Resurrection. 233 
 
 whatever in the miserable doctrine that the sonl 
 perishes when the body dies. 
 
 Neither had our blessed Lord. Passage after 
 passage might be adduced from the Gospels to 
 show this. Let one suffice. He was once asked 
 an entangling question by the Sadducees as to what 
 would be after the resurrection—a question to which 
 we have already referred. The Sadducees did not 
 believe in a resurrection, and they thought to reduce 
 His teaching about it to an absurdity. After turn¬ 
 ing the tables upon them, and showing their gross 
 ignorance of the subject they were talking of, He 
 adds—“Now, that the dead are raised even Moses 
 showed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord the 
 God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the 
 God of Jacob. For He is not a God of the dead, 
 but of the living: for all live unto Him ” (Luke xx. 
 37). If we believe Christ, the soul does not perish 
 at death. There will be a resurrection as surely as 
 there was a dissolution, and between dissolution and 
 resurrection “ all live.” Does it matter much what 
 any man says to the contrary, when we have our 
 Lord’s plain, strong, precise assurance that so it 
 will be ? 
 
 No! Wherever and in whatever state the soul is 
 after death, it is not dead. This spirit of mine, this 
 living, thinking principle within me, is immortal. 
 It cannot die. c< Fear not them who kill the body, 
 and after that have no more that they can do.” No 
 man can kill the soul. Not even God Himself will. 
 
234 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 Yes, say some, that is quite right. The soul does 
 not die at the death of the body. It cannot. It 
 is imperishable. But it falls asleep. It sinks into 
 a condition of unconsciousness, and remains in this 
 condition until the archangel’s trump wakes it. So 
 the interval between death and the resurrection 
 is passed, and then begins the full life of the 
 redeemed. 
 
 This doctrine of “ the sleep of the soul ” is not 
 new. Eusebius mentions a sect which maintained it 
 in his day. At the time of the Reformation it was 
 so prevalent that Calvin found it necessary to write 
 an essay against it. Socinus held it, and Archbishop 
 Whately seems content to leave the question an open 
 one. What is to be said of it ? 
 
 No doubt the word “ sleep ” is used of death over 
 and over again in Scripture. When Stephen was 
 martyred “ he fell asleep.” Paul says, “ I would not 
 have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them 
 which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others 
 who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus 
 died, and rose again, even so them also which sleep 
 in Jesus will God bring with Him; ” and again he 
 says, “ We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be 
 changed.” From this style of expression we have 
 adopted our word cemetery, which means the sleep¬ 
 ing-place—a beautiful name, surely, for the last 
 resting-place of the dead. But the question is— 
 What weight is there in this phrase, as proving that 
 the soul falls asleep at the moment of death, and 
 
Between Death and the Resurrection. 23 5 
 
 remains asleep till the resurrection ? I think the 
 answer must be—no weight whatever. Evidently 
 the phrase is purely figurative. And a very natural 
 as well as very beautiful figure it is which calls death 
 a sleep. You look at the dead body which lies 
 outstretched in yonder chamber. How like is its 
 appearance to that of a sleeper! t The eyes are 
 closed, every nerve and muscle are at rest. You 
 could almost believe that it is really only a sleep. 
 You fancy at times that you can see the bosom heave 
 and can hear a quiet breathing; and even when 
 you know that it is not so, that your beloved is 
 indeed dead, no language seems to you so descrip¬ 
 tive of his state as when you call it “ the last, long 
 sleep.” 
 
 Besides, the word sleep is applicable for another 
 reason. Sleep implies an awaking. When you lie 
 down in your bed at night, you expect to rise again 
 to the activities of life in the morning. It may not 
 be so. You may never awake. Ere morning, the 
 sleep which is death’s facsimile may merge into 
 the sleep of death itself. But usually there is an 
 awaking from “ the taking of rest in sleep.” We 
 always expect such an awaking. And so with death. 
 When we perform the last kindly offices to our 
 departed, when we close their eyes and compose 
 their limbs and lay them to rest in the narrow bed, 
 and deposit the narrow bed in the narrow house, we 
 expect those eyes one day to open again, and that 
 frame now so quiet to be instinct with life. “ Thy 
 
236 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 dead men shall live; together with my dead body 
 shall they arise.” The sleep of the grave may be 
 long, but it will not be for ever. “ All they that 
 sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake.” 
 
 All this precious and comfortable teaching is 
 wrapped up in that word “ sleep.” But it is surely 
 to build a pyramid on a point to draw from such a 
 poetical expression, beautiful and significant though 
 it be, the conclusion that at death the soul sinks 
 into a state of unconsciousness and oblivion, and so 
 remains till the resurrection. We must have more 
 evidence for such a conclusion than a poetic phrase; 
 but, as a matter of fact, there is no more evidence 
 for it. In all the Bible there is nothing more in 
 its favour, absolutely nothing. On the contrary, 
 the condition of the departed is uniformly repre¬ 
 sented as a condition of activity—of rest, indeed, 
 but that rest a busy rest. “ They rest from their 
 labours,” but “ they rest not, day nor night.” They 
 are “ before the throne of God, and praise Him day 
 and night in His temple.” 
 
 Another theory of the destiny of the soul between 
 death and the resurrection points to Purgatory as 
 its possible abode. Boman Catholics teach that all 
 who die in the peace of the Church, but are not 
 perfect, pass thither. Those who are perfect are 
 taken at once to heaven. Purgatory, they say, is a 
 place of suffering,—suffering intended to serve two 
 purposes, expiation and purification. The duration 
 and intensity of this suffering are in proportion to 
 
Between Death and the Resurrection. 237 
 
 guilt. It has no definite limit. It may only last a 
 few hours, or it may go on for ten thousand years. 
 The sufferers may be helped and their sufferings 
 alleviated or shortened by the prayers of the faith¬ 
 ful, and by the performance of masses on their 
 behalf. The Pope and his subordinates have the 
 power of Purgatory, and can detain souls in it, 
 release them from it, and add to or diminish their 
 pains at pleasure. 
 
 Now the question which arises to most people’s 
 lips about all this is, where is it to be found in the 
 Bible ? Echo answers—Where ? There is no such 
 thing in the Sacred Volume from beginning to end. 
 The word Purgatory is not once found in its pages; 
 and all this fine-spun doctrine about it and its 
 sufferings, and the mode of obtaining relief from it, 
 wherever it comes from, is certainly not derived from 
 Holy Writ. From Holy Writ! No, certainly, such 
 doctrine is completely, distinctly, awfully opposed to 
 its clearest teachings. According to the doctrine of 
 Purgatory, the sinner is, amid its fires, to make ex¬ 
 piation for his sins. But the Bible tells us of a far 
 different expiation. “ This Man, after He had offered 
 one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down on the right 
 hand of God” (Heb. x. 12). “Christ being come an 
 high priest of good things to come, by a greater and 
 more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that 
 is to say, not of this building; neither by the blood 
 of goats and calves, but by His own blood, He entered 
 in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal 
 
238 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 redemption for us” (Heb. ix. 11). If there is one 
 thing taught in the Bible more clearly than another, 
 it is that if any man goes with his sins to Jesus 
 he has them forgiven, and more than forgiven, 
 and that if not forgiven thus, they can never be 
 forgiven at all. He Himself says, “ Him that cometh 
 unto me I will in nowise cast out.” There is a 
 priest needed, indeed, for every sinner; but the 
 priest needed, the only priest who can do anything 
 for him, is the great High Priest, who is passed into 
 the heavens, Jesus the Son of God. “ The blood of 
 Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin.” If 
 before you die, ay, if in the very moment and article 
 of death, you take hold of that Blood, all is well with 
 you, well for all eternity. But if not, if life is either 
 sinned or trifled away without the Saviour, and if 
 death strikes the sinner low without His being found, 
 then all Scripture testifies that as the tree falls so it 
 will lie. All the prayers and all the masses of all 
 the popes and all the priests in the world, though 
 continued for a millennium, cannot deliver him. 
 His fate is fixed, fixed for ever. Roman Catholics 
 admit that there is no Purgatory in the Bible. They 
 are obliged to admit it, for the fact is patent. But 
 if it is not there, if it is only a figment of the 
 imagination, we must reject it. Our inquiry in 
 this volume is, as the inquiry of every man must 
 be who believes in a God and a Bible, what saith 
 the Scripture ? And, the Scripture being absolutely 
 silent about Purgatory, and everywhere condemning, 
 
Between Death and the Resurrection. 239 
 
 solemnly and emphatically, such doctrines as it in¬ 
 volves, we need not delay with it. Its refutation is 
 written on its own face. 
 
 What then really becomes of the soul at the hour 
 of dissolution ? Happily, the Bible gives the answer 
 so clearly that there can be no doubt about the 
 matter whatever to him who is content to accept 
 God’s teaching. It tells us that at death the soul 
 of the believer passes at once into glory. We 
 can see this for ourselves with the utmost clear¬ 
 ness, by looking at a few passages bearing on the 
 subject. 
 
 First, we turn up that memorable saying of Christ 
 to the penitent thief, “ Verily I say unto thee, To-day 
 shalt thou be with me in Paradise.” What clearer 
 statement on the subject could there be ? Some 
 people have attempted to nullify the force of the 
 words by altering the usual punctuation, and reading 
 them thus: “ Verily I say unto thee to-day, thou 
 shalt be with me in Paradise.” But it is quite vain 
 to attempt to put a puerile statement, such as this 
 change would make the verse to be, into the lips of 
 Jesus Christ. He never talked in such fashion. 
 Where would have been the sense of telling the thief 
 that He was speaking to him that day ? The passage 
 is clear to every one that wishes to understand it. 
 The poor dying man had made a certain request 
 of Christ, and had specified a certain time at which 
 he wanted this request granted. He had said, 
 “ Lord, remember me,” and had named the time 
 
240 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 when he wanted to be remembered—“ when Thou 
 comest into Thy kingdom.” Christ answers him, as 
 He so often did and does, by granting more than the 
 man asked or thought. He had prayed to be re¬ 
 membered at that dim, uncertain, possibly far distant 
 epoch, when the Lord would come into His kingdom. 
 “ I will remember thee,” is the answer; “ but I will 
 remember thee sooner than thou thinkest or askest— 
 I will remember thee this very day. This very day 
 thou shalt stand beside me on the floor of heaven.” 
 
 But are we quite sure that Paradise means heaven ? 
 One does not like anything connected with a matter 
 so important to be left in the shadow of a shade of 
 doubt. Can we say positively that those words of 
 Jesus were meant to convey to that dying man the 
 assurance that ere that day’s sun had set he would 
 be in glory ? Certainly we can. There are two 
 other places in the Hew Testament where the word 
 Paradise occurs, and in both its meaning is clear. 
 The first is that in which St. Paul tells us of what was 
 probably the most remarkable experience of his life. 
 Here are his own words: “ I knew a man in Christ 
 above fourteen years ago, whether in the body I 
 cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot 
 tell: God knoweth; such an one caught up to the 
 third heaven. And I knew such a man, whether in 
 the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God 
 knoweth; how that he was caught up into Paradise, 
 and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful 
 for a man to utter ” (2 Cor. xii. 2). It is very plain 
 
Between Death and the Resurrection. 241 
 
 here that Paradise is either heaven or a part of 
 heaven. The other place is in the Epistle to the 
 Church of Ephesus: “ He that hath an ear, let him 
 hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches. To 
 him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of 
 life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God ” 
 (Rev. ii. 7). Although this is figurative language, 
 can there be any doubt as to the meaning of the 
 word Paradise in it ? So, when Christ tells the 
 dying thief that that very day he would be with 
 Him in Paradise, there can be no question in the 
 mind of any one who accepts the Bible as his 
 guide, that He meant to reassure him with the 
 comfortable thought that in a little while he would 
 exchange the agonies of a cross for the glories of a 
 heaven. 
 
 Another passage in which it is clearly taught that 
 as soon as the soul of the Christian leaves the body 
 it wings its flight into glory, is that in which the 
 Apostle Paul discourses so eloquently of “ the earthly 
 house of this tabernacle ” and the “ building of God ” 
 (2 Cor. v. 1, etc.). He says, “We know that if our 
 earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we 
 have a building of God, an house not made with 
 hands, eternal in the heavens.” Evidently the 
 comfort of this passage is contained in the fact that 
 the soul is never to be left homeless. As soon as 
 the earthly dwelling, the body, fails it, another is 
 entered. This comes out even more clearly in the 
 next verses: “ For in this (dwelling) we groan, 
 
 Q 
 
242 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house 
 which is from heaven: if so be that being clothed 
 we shall not be found naked. For we that are in 
 this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for 
 that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that 
 mortality might be swallowed up of life.” We are 
 never to be left naked. Deprived of the clothing of 
 the earthly body, we are to be at once “ clothed upon 
 with our house which is from heaven.” This truth 
 is stated, perhaps, in its greatest strength and clear¬ 
 ness in the words, “ Therefore we are always confident, 
 knowing that whilst we are at home in the body 
 we are absent from the Lord. We are confident, I 
 say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, 
 and to be present with the Lord ” (2 Cor. v. 6-8). It 
 is impossible to read these words, and to open our 
 minds to their clear meaning, without seeing that 
 absence from the body, or death, is at once followed 
 by presence with the Lord in heaven. 
 
 Paul brings out the same truth clearly in the 
 memorable words, “ To me to live is Christ, and to 
 die is gain. But if I live in the flesh, this is the 
 fruit of my labour: yet what I shall choose I wot 
 not. For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a 
 desire to depart, and to be with Christ, which is far 
 better” (Phil. i. 21-23). Departure, death, is with 
 him synonymous with presence with Christ in heaven. 
 As soon as the one event occurs, the other blessed 
 experience supervenes. Similarly, when Stephen was 
 dying under the stones of his murderers outside 
 
Between Death and the Resurrection. 243 
 
 the gate of Jerusalem, we read that he prayed* 
 “ Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Evidently he 
 expected that when his spirit would leave the body ? 
 it would be immediately wafted into the presence of 
 Jesus. Then, to mention but one proof more, does 
 not our Lord, in words already commented upon 
 elsewhere, give the same teaching when He says, 
 “ Make to yourself friends of the mammon of un¬ 
 righteousness, that when ye fail they may receive 
 you into everlasting habitations ” ? When we die, 
 those whom we have blessed by our beneficence 
 shall, as it were, wait for and welcome us on the 
 threshold of the palace above, at once. 
 
 Many more passages tending in the same direction 
 might be adduced. But cui bono ? Is not one clear 
 proof as good as five hundred, especially when not 
 one can be quoted on the other side ? Yes, thank 
 God, there is no doubt of it. “ The souls of believers 
 are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do 
 immediately pass into glory.” Immediately! As 
 has been beautifully said, “ There is not a computable 
 point of time between the departure from earth and 
 the entrance on heaven. It is not a sand-fall. It 
 is scarcely the twinkling of an eye. There lies my 
 friend, and death is upon him. The change has 
 well-nigh come. I tremble to think what in an 
 instant he must be. How unlike all he was! How 
 extreme to all he is! I bend over thee and mark 
 thy wasted, pallid frame; I look up, and there 
 ascends before me an angel’s form. I stoop to thee, 
 
244 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 and just can catch thy feeble, gasping whisper; I 
 listen, and there floats around me a seraph’s song. 
 I take thy hand, tremulous and cold, and it is waving 
 to me from yonder skies. I wipe thy brow, damp 
 and furrowed; it is enwreathed with the garland of 
 victory. I slake thy lip, bloodless and parched; it 
 is drinking the living fountains, the overflowing 
 springs of heaven.” 1 You stand by the bed and 
 watch the moment of passing. The death - rattle 
 sounds in the throat, there is a quiver, a little 
 struggle, and all is over. Then— 
 
 “Oil change, oh wondrous change! 
 
 Burst are the prison bars ; 
 
 This moment there, so low, so agonized, 
 
 The next beyond the stars ! 
 
 Oh change, stupendous change! 
 
 There lies the soulless clod, 
 
 The sun eternal breaks, the young immortal wakes, 
 Wakes with his God.” 
 
 There is one statement made in Scripture regard¬ 
 ing Christ which seems to introduce a little perplexity 
 into this matter. St. Peter, it will be remembered, in 
 his famous Pentecostal sermon, quotes some verses 
 of the sixteenth Psalm and applies them to Him. 
 He says, “David speaketh concerning Plim, I fore¬ 
 saw the Lord always before my face; for He is on 
 my right hand, that I should not be moved: there¬ 
 fore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad; 
 moreover, also, my flesh shall rest in hope: because 
 1 Rev. James Hamilton, D.D. 
 
Between Death and the Resurrection. 245 
 
 Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt 
 Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption ” 
 (Acts ii. 25). He shows that these words refer to 
 our Lord. He says that David “ being a prophet, 
 and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to 
 him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the 
 flesh, He would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; 
 he, seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of 
 Christ, that His soul was not left in hell, neither His 
 flesh did see corruption” (Acts ii. 30). Do we not 
 seem to be taught here that when Christ died His 
 soul went not to heaven but to hell ? So the 
 Apostles’ Creed states—“ He was crucified, dead, 
 and buried. He descended into hell.” You say, 
 how is this ? In one passage we are told that 
 Christ at death ascended to Paradise. Here, that he 
 descended into hell. Did our Lord really go to hell ? 
 In any case, how are such apparently contradictory 
 statements to be at all reconciled ? 
 
 There have been those who have believed that 
 Christ actually at death went down to the abode of 
 the lost, and was there for three days. Some who 
 have so held have been men of no small weight. 
 Calvin entertained this view. He believed that 
 Christ really at death went to the place of everlasting 
 punishment; and that He actually endured in hell 
 some of its terrible pains. He held that this was 
 part of His atoning work ; that, as He stood in the 
 room of the sinner before God, He had to bear all 
 that the sinner would have borne, and that so He 
 
246 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 drank the cup of punishment on our behalf to the 
 last dark drop. 1 
 
 Others, while agreeing with Calvin, that Jesus 
 descended to hell from Calvary, hold that He did so, 
 not for the purpose of enduring any of its torments, 
 but for another end. They shrink from the thought 
 that He ever knew anything, by actual experience, 
 of the miseries of the lost. That conception is too 
 awful. They tell us that His descent thither is 
 explained by such a passage as Col. ii. 15, where 
 Paul thus describes His work—“ Blotting out the 
 handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which 
 was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nail¬ 
 ing it to His cross ; and having spoiled principalities 
 and powers, He made a show of them openly, 
 triumphing over them in it.” This they explain to 
 mean that when Christ died, and when He had thus 
 finished the work, in virtue of which sinners were to 
 be released from the penalties of a broken law, He 
 went down into the realms of woe, not to suffer any 
 of that woe Himself, but to proclaim exultantly 
 there, in the presence of the arch-enemy, that his 
 power was gone. 
 
 Others, again, have the idea that Christ descended 
 into hell to preach the gospel to its hapless inhabit¬ 
 ants ; that no sooner had He yielded up the ghost, 
 than a general amnesty was, as it were, proclaimed, 
 and that He went down among the lost to preach 
 this deliverance to the captives. So they read that 
 
 1 See Institutes ii. 16. 
 
Between Death and the Resurrection. 247 
 
 much controverted passage in the First Epistle of Peter 
 —“ Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just 
 for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being 
 put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the 
 Spirit: by which also He went and preached to the 
 spirits in prison; which sometime were disobedient, 
 when once the long-suffering of God waited in the 
 days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein 
 few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water” (1 
 Pet. iii. 18). These “spirits in prison” are in their 
 judgment the lost in hell, and their reading of the 
 passage is that our Lord, when He had “yielded up 
 the ghost,” went down among them and preached to 
 them the gospel of His own grace. 
 
 All these various authorities therefore hold that 
 Christ actually spent some time in the place of 
 punishment after His crucifixion. They assign 
 different reasons for His visit there. But they 
 agree as to the fact of the visit. They hold 
 literally by the words of the Apostles’ Creed— 
 “ He descended into hell.” 
 
 Was this really so ? 
 
 To answer the question, let us look at the 
 meaning of the words translated hell in our Bibles. 
 Here the English reader will derive much advantage 
 from consulting the Revised Version of the Scrip¬ 
 tures. If we look at its rendering of the passage in 
 Acts, which we have already cited, we find that it 
 translates it thus—“ Thou wilt not leave my soul in 
 Hades; ” and when we look to Ps. xvi., from which 
 
248 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 Peter quoted the expression, we find it translated in 
 the Revised Version—“ Thou wilt not leave my soul 
 to Sheol.” These two terms, Hades and Sheol, are 
 simply the original Scripture words—Greek and 
 Hebrew—left untranslated, and transferred to the 
 English version. The question is, what do they 
 mean ? Do they signify the abode of the lost, or 
 what ? On the answer to this question must 
 depend, of course, our answer to the other—did 
 Christ actually descend to hell from the cross ? 
 
 If we take up the Bible—preferably the Revised 
 Version—we make one discovery in a few minutes, 
 viz. that the word Sheol does not necessarily or 
 always mean the abode of the lost. Let us keep 
 the term untranslated, where it occurs, and we shall 
 see this easily. We begin at Genesis. There we 
 find, e.g., that pathetic story of the reported death of 
 Joseph. When the news is brought to Jacob that 
 his favourite boy is dead, that he has probably been 
 killed by some wild beast, we are told “ Jacob rent 
 his garments, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and 
 mourned for his son many days. And all his sons 
 and his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he 
 refused to be comforted: and he said, For I will 
 go down to Sheol to my son mourning ” (Gen. 
 xxxvii. 34). Does any one mean to say that 
 Jacob thought his son had gone to the abode of 
 the lost, and that he himself expected to be there 
 also ? A parallel passage occurs a little farther on. 
 When Jacob’s other sons wanted to take Benjamin 
 
Between Death and the Resurrection. 249 
 
 down into Egypt, the old man said—“ My son shall 
 not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and 
 he only is left. If mischief befall him by the way 
 in which ye go, then shall ye bring down my grey 
 hairs with sorrow to Sheol” (Gen. xlii. 38). Plainly 
 the word does not mean the world of woe here, any 
 more than in the former place. Among Job’s words, 
 again, spoken in his time of trouble, we read—“ Oh 
 that Thou wouldst hide me in Sheol! ” Did the 
 afflicted patriarch want God to consign him to hell ? 
 David cries—“ My soul is full of troubles, and my 
 life draweth nigh unto Sheol.” Did he mean that 
 he felt himself sinking into hell ? Is any one going 
 to say that in one of these passages the word means 
 the abode of the lost ? Yet the very same word, 
 used in all these places, is used in that sixteenth 
 Psalm, the meaning of which we are seeking to 
 arrive at. If it does not mean hell in the other 
 places, why here ? 
 
 Now Hades is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew 
 Sheol. This is seen at once if we compare the words 
 in Ps. xvi.—“ Thou wilt not leave my soul to Sheol,” 
 with the same words as quoted in Acts ii.—“ Thou 
 wilt not leave my soul in Hades.” The word Sheol 
 occurs sixty-five times in the Old Testament. In 
 sixty-one of these places it is translated in the 
 Septuagint by Hades, twice by Oavaro ? (death), and 
 twice it is omitted. In our Authorized English 
 Version, in these sixty-five places it is translated 
 thirty-one times “ grave,” thirty-one times “ hell,” 
 
250 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 and three times “ pit.” These figures themselves 
 would be sufficient to show that the word does not 
 always, or necessarily, mean the abode of the lost; 
 a point, however, which is already clear to us. 
 Now, Hades being the Greek equivalent of Sheol, 
 the meaning of Sheol is the meaning of Hades, and 
 therefore, as Sheol does not always or necessarily 
 mean the place of punishment, neither does Hades. 
 So much is perfectly clear. 
 
 Well, you say, what is the meaning of these two 
 words which are thus each other’s equivalents ? We 
 have seen what they do not mean. What is their 
 signification ? They simply mean the unseen world. 
 Every tyro in Greek knows that that is the literal 
 etymological meaning of the word Hades. It and its 
 Hebrew equivalent appear simply to denote the 
 invisible region in which departed spirits dwell. 
 That world has its two departments, and only 
 two, one for the just and one for the unjust. 
 Go back on the texts at which we have just been 
 looking; insert “ the unseen world ” or “ the world 
 of spirits ” in every place where Sheol or Hades 
 occurs, and you will see how intelligibly they 
 will all read. They will not read intelligibly 
 otherwise. 
 
 Now, the point which we have to settle is, where 
 was the soul of Jesus during that three days’ interval 
 between His death and resurrection ? We know 
 where His body was. It quietly slumbered in that 
 rocky grave in Joseph’s garden. But where was His 
 
Between Death and the Resurrection. 251 
 
 soul from the Friday afternoon, when He breathed 
 His last, till, in the grey dawn of the following 
 Sunday morning, He burst the barriers of the 
 tomb ? Eemember that He had a true human 
 soul as well as a true human body. You are not 
 to imagine that the Divinity within Christ took 
 in His case the place of a soul. The Shorter 
 Catechism of the Westminster Divines, which re¬ 
 futes so many a heresy, ancient and modern, with 
 its simple and sometimes apparently unimportant 
 words, keeps us right on this point by saying that 
 He had “ a true body and a reasonable soul.” Now 
 when that reasonable soul was separated by death 
 from that true body, whither did it go ? The Bible 
 makes, as we have seen, two statements on the 
 subject. In one place it says that that soul went 
 into Paradise, in another it tells us that it went to 
 Sheol or Hades. Is there any contradiction between 
 the two statements ? None whatever. Is there 
 any contradiction when two people say of a person 
 setting out from our quay some evening on board 
 one of the Channel steamers, the one that he is 
 going to England, the other that he is going to 
 London ? The two statements are different, but 
 quite consistent with each other. So with the case 
 before us. Paradise, as we have seen, is heaven ; 
 and heaven and hell, the abode of the blest and the 
 abode of the lost, are two divisions, the only two 
 divisions, of the unseen world, which is called Sheol 
 or Hades. Jesus, when He died, went to that un- 
 
252 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 seen world; not to that dreary portion of it where 
 miserable souls languish in despairing agony, but to 
 Paradise, the other portion, whither at death the 
 soul of the dying thief was wafted, and whither, too, 
 all souls which, like his, are emancipated from the 
 body and at peace with Christ, pass to be for ever 
 with the Lord. 
 
 But what then, you say, is the meaning of that 
 text which has been quoted from 1 Pet. iii. 19, and 
 which speaks of Christ preaching to “ the spirits in 
 prison ” ? Who are those spirits in prison ? When 
 and how did Christ preach to them? No doubt 
 there is a mystery about this statement. St. Peter 
 says of St. Paul’s writings that there are in them 
 “ some things hard to be understood, which they that 
 are unlearned and unstable wrest unto their own 
 destruction.” With this passage in his eye, St. 
 Paul might very readily have retorted the charge on 
 St. Peter, for probably no passage in all Scripture 
 has been more bandied about among contro¬ 
 versialists. There are many interpretations of it. 
 We are not particularly concerned with them just 
 now, because, no matter which of them be the 
 correct one, no matter whether none of them be 
 correct, it is plain that that which makes the 
 words say that Christ at His death descended to 
 the abode of the lost, is wrong. We know from 
 His own explicit testimony that He went to 
 Paradise. We have not the slightest hint that 
 He left it to proceed to the nether world; and, 
 
Between Death and the Resurrection. 
 
 253 
 
 moreover, all Scripture assures us that in that 
 nether world there is no proclamation of pardon. 
 
 “ Life is the season God hath given 
 To fly from hell and rise to heaven. 
 
 That day of grace fleets fast away, 
 
 And none its rapid course can stay. 
 
 In the cold grave to which we haste. 
 
 There are no acts of pardon past; 
 
 But fixed the doom of all remains, 
 
 And everlasting silence reigns.” 
 
 I can find in the Bible no glimmer of a hope of a 
 probation after death, or of a restoration of the lost 
 to God’s favour. !No matter how much one may 
 desire such a thing, no matter how despairingly 
 guilty souls may clutch at the chance of it, we must 
 be honest and faithful, both to God and man, and 
 say we can find no trace of such a door of escape in 
 all Scripture. 
 
 What then does St. Peter mean by what he states in 
 this strange verse ? Well, he who should obstinately 
 dogmatize on such a text would be a fool. There is 
 one expression in it, however, which seems to us to 
 be the key to its meaning—the words “ the Spirit.” 
 It was by “ the Spirit ” that Christ went and preached 
 to those spirits in prison. Apparently this expres¬ 
 sion points to the fact that it was not personally, but 
 by the agency of the Holy Spirit, that He carried out 
 this preaching. The mention of Noah, perhaps, gives 
 another clue to the meaning. On the supposition 
 that Christ descended into the veritable hell for the 
 purpose of proclaiming pardon to the lost, there 
 
254 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 would seem to be no reason why He should have 
 singled out the lost of an antediluvian date for that 
 favour; no reason for it, but apparently every reason 
 against such a curious and invidious selection. But 
 couple together these two undoubted facts, that it 
 was by the Spirit that Christ engaged in the preach¬ 
 ing referred to by St. Peter, and that Noah is 
 expressly declared to have been “ a preacher of 
 righteousness,” and a bright light seems to glow 
 around the apostle’s dark words. They appear to 
 tell us now of those memorable hundred and twenty 
 years during which Noah, patiently, and in spite of 
 obloquy and scorn, witnessed to the truth of God. 
 He was a servant of Christ. As a servant of Christ 
 he was guided and helped by the Spirit of Christ; 
 and being all this, it was not so much Noah’s preach¬ 
 ing as Christ’s that rang across the world in those 
 old days, and that was so scornfully rejected by the 
 antediluvian sinners, and so, through the Spirit, 
 Christ “ went and preached unto the spirits in 
 prison, who sometime were disobedient in the days 
 of Noah.” At all events, something like this seems 
 to me to be the meaning of the passage. 
 
 To return, however, to the point with which we 
 are immediately concerned here. When the Christian 
 dies, it is plain that he goes, not to any Purgatory, 
 for of no Purgatory does the Bible know anything; 
 not to any dark and cheerless under-world, to sleep 
 away the time between dissolution and resurrection, 
 for no such sleep of the soul is recognised in Scrip- 
 
Between Death and the Resurrection. 255 
 
 ture; still less into utter annihilation, for no such 
 annihilation will there be. He goes “ to be with 
 Christ, which is far better,” into Paradise, at once 
 into his heavenly home. True, his bliss there will 
 be shorn of its completeness until the resurrection. 
 Not till the clang of the archangel’s trump wakes 
 his sleeping body and restores it to him, spiritualized 
 and “made meet for the inheritance of the saints in 
 light,” shall he be again the complete man that he 
 was on earth. But, withal, from the moment of his 
 winging his flight from his earthly dwelling, he will 
 be at once in glory, in his Father’s house, in his 
 heavenly home. Whatever is dark about the subject 
 we are treating, so much is clear. Is it not enough? 
 
I 
 
 . 
 
 . 
 
 ■ 
 
 ; 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ' 
 
 
 > • 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 5? a to to got tfjm. 
 
 B 
 
CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 HOW TO GET THERE. 
 
 YYUE discussions of the subject of heaven would 
 ” he incomplete if they came to a close without 
 giving some indication as to how the better land may 
 be reached. We have inquired into its situation, we 
 have seen its inhabitants, we have investigated its 
 glories, and the questions ought to rise to many a 
 heart and be anxiously pondered—Can I get there ? 
 If so, how ? Let us conclude our inquiries by trying, 
 calmly and dispassionately and carefully, remember¬ 
 ing what interests are at stake, to give an answer to 
 such questions. 
 
 You are anxious, then, let me suppose, to gain a 
 place in heaven at last. But you are painfully con¬ 
 scious that you are not fit for its holy society. You 
 read of its purity and its peace, of its unsullied 
 allegiance to God, of the incessant delight of its 
 inhabitants in doing His will, and then you scan 
 your own life as honestly as it is in your power to 
 do. You mark its deep-seated tendency to sin, and 
 its many outbreaks of unrighteousness. You think 
 
 259 
 
260 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 of your frequent unholy thoughts, of your unworthy 
 acts, of your ungodly words. You see how opposite 
 you are to God, how unlike that spotless company 
 whose white robes symbolize their purity; and, as 
 you do all this, you are forced, however reluctantly, 
 to the conclusion that you are not worthy of heaven, 
 nor, if you could obtain admission into it, capable of 
 enjoying it. I take it that you are honest with 
 yourself, that you really examine your heart and 
 your life and your ways, justly and without pre¬ 
 judice in your own favour, and that you remember 
 that no secrets can be hidden from Him with 
 whom you have to do. Then, I say, the con¬ 
 clusion to which you must undoubtedly come will 
 be, “ Woe is me! for I am undone; for I am a 
 man of unclean lips.” “ Unclean ! unclean ! ” How 
 can such an one as I am ever ascend into the hill 
 
 of God ? 
 
 ♦ 
 
 Here is the case then.' You are utterly unworthy 
 of admission into heaven, yet you desire to be there. 
 Desire ? That is not the word. You would feel 
 miserable at the thought of being shut out from it. 
 Eightly and justly, you would reckon yourself undone, 
 for you know there is but the choice between the 
 bliss of heaven and the unutterable misery of the lost 
 world. Yet how can it be ? A street beggar longing 
 for admission within the charmed circle of a royal 
 court, does not seem indulging a wilder hope than 
 you, when, with all your righteousnesses hanging 
 about you as filthy rags, you yet aspire to stand in 
 
How to gat there. 261 
 
 that splendid company which surrounds the throne 
 above. 
 
 Now, the question for you is, has God indicated 
 any way by which, notwithstanding your unworthi¬ 
 ness and unfitness, you may gain your wish and 
 succeed in obtaining an entrance into heaven ? 
 That is the whole matter. If He has, then it may 
 be done. If not, what hope can there be ? 
 
 Well, God has spoken to us in the Bible. It is 
 His revelation (the unveiling of Himself) to us. We 
 cannot open it without seeing that its great purpose 
 is to tell man his own story, to inform him what he 
 was originally, to what state he brought himself, how 
 his great loss may be recovered, how, coming from 
 heaven, he may get back to heaven again. That is 
 just what we want to know. It does not matter to 
 us what are the thoughts or ideas of men on this 
 tremendous subject. It is not with man we have to 
 do, but with God. Heaven is His, and it is for 
 Him to say in what way, if any, we, who are so 
 unworthy of it and unfit for it, can obtain admission 
 within its gates. Man may speculate and dogmatize 
 on the matter if he pleases. He may reason out this 
 or that theory, talk of the impossibility of this, the 
 unreasonableness of that, the clearness of this other. 
 You impatiently brush away all his speculations and 
 conclusions. You say these may be true, or they 
 may not—I want to know what God says on the 
 matter. I am in His hands. Let me hear His voice. 
 He has caused a book to be written to teach me 
 
262 
 
 Beyond the Stars . 
 
 about these things. My concern is with it. Let me 
 see if it gives me hope, if it puts me upon any plan 
 by which I may look forward, notwithstanding my 
 sin, to get to heaven when I die. “ I will hear what 
 God the Lord will speak ” to me. “ Speak, Lord, 
 Thy servant heareth ! ” 
 
 In this mood you open the Bible, and it is not long 
 before you discover that God has provided a way to 
 heaven for the sinner. Side by side with the most 
 vivid and humbling descriptions of your sin, you find 
 the most comforting and reassuring statements of 
 His mercy, and of His wish that “ His banished 
 might return ” to Him. Dimly and slowly at first, 
 but by and by more and more clearly, the truth dawns 
 and grows upon you, that, bad as you are, your case 
 is not hopeless, that, indeed, God gives you every 
 indication of His pity for your condition, and of His 
 willingness, yea, His anxiety, to see you restored to 
 the high position which man once occupied. You 
 find Him, not far from the opening of His revelation, 
 proclaiming Himself as “the Lord, the Lord God, 
 merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in 
 goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, 
 forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin ” (Ex. 
 xxxiv. 6). You breathe freely again as this blessed 
 unveiling of the nature of Him with whom you have 
 to do becomes clear to you. With each of these 
 successive announcements of His mercy your hopes 
 rise higher, and you begin to whisper to yourself that 
 all may yet be well. But stop! What words are 
 
How to get there. 
 
 263 
 
 these which come in at the close of the sweet strains 
 which have been singing peace to your soul, words 
 which seem to you like some funeral knell, tolling the 
 burial of all your hopes just when they had begun to 
 live ?—“ and that will by no means clear the guilty ; 
 visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children, 
 and upon the children’s children, unto the third 
 and to the fourth generation ” (Ex. xxxiv. 7). You 
 tremble as you read, “Then it is all hopeless,” 
 you say. “ I am guilty. I know it; and He says, c I 
 will by no means clear the guilty.’ My fathers 
 sinned before me; and, as if to leave me no loophole 
 of escape, He declares that He will visit ‘ the iniquity 
 of the fathers upon the children, and upon the 
 children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth 
 generation.’ ” You are beaten back to the earth in 
 despair. You had thought to rise to heaven. But 
 these words baffle and stun you, and seem to drive 
 you down to hell. 
 
 Still your quest is too valuable to be lightly given 
 up. So you rise again and stumble on, peering 
 anxiously for any indication of a way by which 
 you may climb those glorious but apparently 
 inaccessible heights. And by and by there' begins 
 to break upon you some faint glimmering of a path 
 by which you may. This feeble ray grows in 
 brightness until, when you reach the New Testa¬ 
 ment,—the latest and clearest indication of God’s 
 will,—you discover beyond doubt, not only that there 
 is hope for you, — of that you were long since 
 
264 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 assured,—but you find how and why there is. There 
 becomes firmly riveted in your mind one conviction, 
 which at length gives definiteness to all your aims 
 and efforts,—the conviction, namely, that all hope of 
 heaven is connected with the Son of God. You find 
 that, in addition to the revelation of Himself which 
 God gave by means of a Book, He gave a further 
 revelation by His Son, sending Him down to earth in 
 human form, and speaking to men through His life 
 and by His words ; so that while, as that Son Himself 
 said, “ Ho man hath seen God at any time, the only- 
 begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He 
 hath declared Him.” Here is a great gain for you. 
 You have not only now a Book to guide your 
 inquiries; you have a Person to whom you can 
 appeal, a Person who is the embodiment of Divinity, 
 and is commissioned to proclaim and illustrate to 
 man the nature and the will of Divinity, that he may 
 know God better than he could ever otherwise have 
 known Him, and may learn how he can get back to 
 Him and up to His high dwelling-place. It is as if 
 you had been sailing over unknown and dangerous 
 seas in some frail craft, alone, with only a chart and 
 the stars above to guide your steering, when suddenly 
 there came to your side a pilot to help you in the 
 difficult navigation. You have, an instinctive feeling 
 now that all will be well with you. „ 
 
 You question Christ on the point nearest your 
 heart. “ How,” you say, “ may I, guilty, weak, and 
 helpless, attain to yonder glorious fellowship in the 
 

 How to get there. 265 
 
 heavens ? I feel there is hope for me. Once I 
 thought there was none. Now I know there is hope. 
 But it is a hope which is mixed with trembling. 
 For, if God is merciful, long-suffering, full of pity and 
 goodness, I hear the echo of those dread words 
 ringing through every chamber of my soul,—He ‘ will 
 by no means clear the guilty; * He ‘ visits the 
 iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the 
 third and to the fourth generation.’ Tell me, 0 Lord,” 
 you say, “ how to reconcile these apparent opposites! 
 Tell me if my case is truly one which admits of hope, 
 if I may really aspire to walk one day in those 
 Elysian fields above.” You see the lips of the Great 
 Teacher unclose, and the ready answer comes forth 
 to you, ready and glorious, albeit there yet remains 
 some mystery about it—“ I am the way ... no 
 man cometh unto the Father but by me.” 
 
 This advances you a step, a great step, forward. 
 It brings you to a point where you can stay yourself 
 with the assured conviction that you have gained 
 a clue to heaven which can never be lost. Christ 
 is the way upward. He says so, and He is truth 
 incarnate. And there can be no doubt, no mistake, 
 about the matter, for He repeats the statement over 
 and over again in varying forms, and it is confirmed 
 to us by His apostles. All the voices of inspiration 
 unite in assuring us that “ there is none other name 
 under heaven given among men whereby we must be 
 saved ; ” that “ there is one God, and one Mediator 
 between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” Not 
 
 1 
 
266 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 only so, but other modes of approaching Him, to 
 which we might have been inclined to resort, are, one 
 by one, cut away from ns. We are told that we need 
 not hope for any salvation by works,—that prayers, 
 penitences, charities, however good in themselves, 
 will prove vain refuges,—in a word, by a merciless 
 process of exclusion, we are deprived of all other 
 possible hopes of heaven ; and as, in the first instance, 
 we were expressly told that Christ is the way to the 
 Father,—the only way,—so now all other avenues of 
 access to Him are shown to be closed up, and we are 
 forced, willingly or unwillingly, to the conclusion 
 that no hopes of heaven need be indulged by any 
 man except in and through Jesus the Son of God. 
 
 But how ? In what manner do I walk on this 
 “ way ” — how, precisely, does He avail for my 
 acceptance with His Father ? There is obviously 
 something still to be learned, and for the learning 
 I must go to the school of Inspiration again. As I 
 sit there, if I am a docile scholar, there is gradually 
 unfolded to me, in lesson after lesson, the great 
 “ mystery of godliness.” I knew before my un¬ 
 worthiness of heaven. But I find, as I study the 
 matter, that the half was not told me. As I 
 discover my sin,—inborn, deep-dyed, virulent,—the 
 conviction deepens within me that indeed a great 
 work must be wrought for me, and a great change 
 produced within me, if ever I am to walk the 
 golden streets. I learn that “ the carnal mind ”— 
 my mind—“ is enmity against God ; ” that it is 
 
How to get there . 
 
 267 
 
 “ not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can 
 he.” I find that “ they that are in the flesh ”— 
 like me—“ cannot please God.” I am taught that 
 “ the wages of sin is death; ” that “ the soul that 
 sinneth, it shall die; ” that “ cursed is every one 
 that continueth not in all things written in the 
 book of the law to do them; ” and yet, that “ there 
 is not a just man upon the earth that doeth good 
 and sinneth not; ” that “ there is none righteous, 
 no, not one.” It is indeed plain, then, that my 
 salvation must be wrought for me ; that “ the way ” 
 must be Christ, or some one like Him, who can do 
 everything. Still, the question recurs—how ? As 
 I study on, I soon find how. I discover that Christ 
 came down from heaven to take the place of sinful, 
 undone man—to do in his stead what he was 
 required to do—to suffer what he had brought on 
 himself. I cannot doubt that, stupendous, almost 
 beyond belief, though the truth appears. It is 
 written as with a sunbeam all over the various 
 chambers of the temple 4 of Inspiration. As I 
 traverse them, my eye lights on such golden 
 inscriptions as these: “ He was made sin for us 
 who knew no sin, that we might be made the 
 righteousness of God in Him; ” “ He gave His life 
 a ransom for many; ” “ This is a faithful saying, 
 and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus 
 came into the world to save sinners; ” “ What the 
 law could not do, in that it was weak through the 
 flesh, God, sending His own Son in the likeness of 
 
268 
 
 Beyond the Stars . 
 
 sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the 
 flesh; ” “ There is therefore now no condemnation 
 to them who are in Christ Jesus; ” “ He bare our 
 sins in His own body on the Tree.” 
 
 But there yet remains one question to be solved, 
 only one, but that one so momentous, that, unless I 
 can obtain a clear answer to it, all the other 
 information I have gained will go for nothing. I 
 now see clearly that in myself I have not only no 
 right to heaven and no fitness for it, but that I 
 have such unfitness and such guilt, that I have 
 wholly forfeited all prospect of it. I see, on the 
 other hand, that “ God is love,” that He has no 
 wish to see me banished from His face for ever; 
 but, on the contrary, that He has a yearning desire 
 that I should return to Him, and to the position 
 which man once held before Him. And I see, 
 further, how He has proved the reality of that work, 
 and made its realization possible, by giving His own 
 Son to die on my behalf. I gaze on the Cross. I 
 fix my eyes on the pallid face of the Sufferer who 
 hangs there before me. I reflect that He is the 
 Son of God, and I can no longer doubt the good¬ 
 will of Heaven toward man. But now what I want 
 to know is—How can I avail myself of that sacrifice 
 which has been offered on behalf of such as I am ? 
 I take up my Bible again to search out this point. 
 I find it clearly revealed that I must connect myself 
 with that Sacrifice in some way. By various state¬ 
 ments, and various forms of expression, it is made 
 
How to get there. 269 
 
 plain to me that I have a part to play, not in 
 making any kind of atonement for my sins, but in 
 availing myself of the atonement which has been 
 made. I find that there is such a thing as “ neglect¬ 
 ing the great salvation,”—such a thing as saying 
 “ Lord, Lord,” and yet being shut out of heaven 
 at last,—such a thing as “ receiving the grace of 
 God in vain.” What am I then to do ? Curiously 
 enough, as I read I discover that the same question, 
 in almost the same words, was asked centuries ago 
 by another poor anxious sinner like myself—asked 
 of an apostle. That is what I want, the answer of 
 an apostle, of some one who can speak to me with 
 Divine authority on the subject. Let me hear what 
 it is—“ Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou 
 shalt be saved, and thy house.” Believe ? Yes.— 
 so it reads. But what is it to believe ? I study 
 out this point also. I search the Scriptures, and 
 compare one with another to obtain all the informa¬ 
 tion possible. At last I have it. I find that to 
 believe on Christ is simply to accept Him trustfully 
 as my Saviour, as a poor, self-condemned sinner 
 to betake me to Him, and “ receive and rest on 
 Him alone for salvation.” I resolve to do that. 
 I am not satisfied merely to know the way. I 
 must surely walk in it. I have at last found, it. 
 It is plain to me. I now take the lantern of the 
 Bible in my hand, and tremblingly, perhaps, and 
 feebly, but at the same time trustfully, and with a 
 holy determination burning in my soul, set out 
 
270 
 
 Beyond the Stars. 
 
 on another Pilgrim’s Progress, my eyes fixed on the 
 cross, and singing as I go,— 
 
 “ Just as I am—without one plea, 
 
 But that Thy blood was shed for me, 
 
 And that Thou bidd’st me come to Thee, 
 
 0 Lamb of God, I come! 
 
 Just as I am—poor, wretched, blind, 
 
 Sight, riches, healing of the mind, 
 
 Yea, all I need, in Thee to find, 
 
 0 Lamb of God, I come! 
 
 Just as I am—Thou wilt receive, 
 
 Wilt pardon, comfort, cleanse, relieve, 
 
 Because Thy promise I believe, 
 
 0 Lamb of God, I come ! ” 
 
 As I go on, and near my journey’s end, I look up 
 and see that heaven is all peopled with just such as 
 myself. Angelic fingers point to the shining throng 
 and say—“ These are they who came out of great 
 tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made 
 them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore 
 are they before the throne of God, and praise Him 
 day and night in His temple. They shall hunger 
 no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall 
 the sun light on them, nor any heat: for the Lamb 
 that is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, 
 and shall lead them to living fountains of water; 
 and God shall wipe away all tears from their 
 eyes.” 
 
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