When some poor family in the old world contemplates emigrating to that new and wonderful country in the West for the betterment of all their circumstances with what thrilling interest they gather all the information they can about the new world. They eagerly devour books and maps describing the country, its mountains and prairies, its rivers and mines, its climate and productiveness, and methods of travel, as to how to get there, and what the cost will be. All these characteristics, will mark the conduct of those souls that are true emmigrants from earth to heaven. From the days of Abraham till now, the life of a true servant of God has been that of a pilgrim. The learned and saintly Dean Alford had inscribed upon his tomb, '"The lodge of a pilgrim on his way to the New Jerusalem." Both a prophet and an apostle unite in telling us that the joys of the heavenly kingdom are greater than the heart of man can comprehend. Ever since Abraham got a vision of the city which hath foundations, and was so charmed with the prospect of the sweet immortal joys in that city, that he never would build himself a house, but lived in tents, the saints of all generations have looked forward to the supreme happiness of that heavenly country; and hoped, and sung and meditated, and sweetly longed to reach its ever-blessed enjoyments. There are three vast empires in the universal creation, recognized in Scripture as Nature, Grace and Glory. We first live in a state of nature, and learn much of its character, its laws, its beauties, its pleasures, and also of its fallen condition, its vanity and transitoriness. When we become real Christians we enter, by the new birth, into the realm of grace. The system of grace is a distinct economy in the creation of God for the saving of a fallen world, involving a plan of redemption by the incarnation and sacrificial death of the second Person in the Godhead, and a life of faith, until our probation ends. This realm of grace has its joys, and victories, though mingled in manifold ways with the ministry of sorrow, and of sore temptations and trials. Beyond the realm of grace comes the realm of glory, with its unmeasured vastness of liberty and honor, of happiness and unfading immortality. It is upon this realm of heavenly glory that we want to fix our eyes for a few moments, that by looking at the future glory we may strengthen the present conditions of grace.

Perhaps we ought first of all to form some scriptural idea of what is meant by the word "heaven." This word as used in the Bible, is a large, generic term, including all the sinless creation of God outside of this world, and outside of the hell, which we are told was specially prepared for the devil and his angels. The Hebrew word for heaven is in the plural, and literally means 'Things heaved up"'; that is, all things elevated above this world. The Greek word for heaven is frequently in the plural number, and includes all things above the earth. The word signifies things in the air and in the sky. In scores of places the term heaven includes our atmosphere, and cloud regions, which is the first heaven. It next includes the sky, with its sun, moon and stars, which is the second heaven. Beyond that is the third heaven, to which Paul was caught up, including the unknown localities of Paradise, the abode of departed saints, and the throne of God, the divine court, where countless angels minister and worship. Now, when we speak of the joys of heaven that are in reserve for the righteous, we must widen our thought," according to the extent of Scripture teaching, to embrace all that belongs to the glorified and immortal state. We must also remember that when this world has passed through its history of redemption, and when its various dispensations of grace have been merged into the age of glory, it will be in the boundaries of heaven, and a part of that blessed realm; hence, we now use the word heaven more especially to apply to the glorified state of the saints, including the resurrection of the body, the marriage supper of the Lamb, the 'princely authority over the nations with Jesus in His millennial reign, and the beatific vision of seeing the face of God, and the glorious ministries and immortal honors that are to come after the institution of the new heavens and the new earth, and the domesticating of the glorified saints in their mansions in the city of pure gold, the New Jerusalem.

1. The Glorified Body. All our best thoughts in connection with the joys of possessing a glorified body must be formed out of faint analogies and consist mostly of negatives, as it will be in so many things the very opposite of what the body is in the present state. The bodies of the resurrected saints will be of the same substance they are now; in fact the same bodies' according to Scripture; but the particles composing the body will be transmuted from fleshly conditions into a spiritualized condition' from the mortal to the immortal; from being subject to physical law, they will be under spiritual law, having passed from the realm of nature into the realm of glory. The Apostle says of the resurrected body of the saint, "that it is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor, 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." 1 Cor. 15:42-44. These four attributes of the glorified body cover the entire range of all the possibilties that we can imagine as belonging to an organism for its everlasting blessedness. The first attribute is that of immortality, perfect exemption from sickness, death, pain, old age, deformity, and every taint of decay. The second attribute is that of glory, which implies its brightness, as of light, also its beauty and radiance and sweet attractiveness, possessing every charm of form and motion, and every capacity for the most brilliant expression of thought and feeling. The third attribute is that of power, angelic energy, which includes supernatural strength over all the forces of nature, such as wind, water, fire, gravitation, storms, lightning, and every known force in the realm of matter. It also includes swiftness of motion, power to fly through space with the ease and velocity of light; as Jesus, after He rose from the dead, could instantly take His body through stone walls without opening a door, or transfer it from the earth to the third heavens and back again in a few moments, and make it visible to men, and then vanish out of their sight at will. This word "power" also includes the vast and transcendent exercise of the five senses, of the voice, of the expression, of the features, so that the power of the glorified body of a saint will surpass any known power in all the realms of nature -- power surpassing lightning, thunder, cyclones, earthquakes, rolling oceans, blazing suns, or shooting stars, or all the combined energies of the armies of earth, or of the combined strength of all wicked men and evil angels. When the armies of Assyria besieged Hezekiah, God sent an angel one night, who, with the brush of his wing, swept the breath out of one hundred and eighty five thousand soldiers, and Jesus tells us that the power of a glorified saint shall be equal to that of the angels. The fourth attribute is that of being "spiritual," which includes its spotless purity, its being subtle like a flame, or a body of solidified light, with spiritual senses, ecstacies and joys entirely under the sway of spiritual laws, and of such marvelous capacity as to be flooded with divine bliss without being shattered by the torrents of heavenly gladness. Think of all the joys that the five senses can take in while we are in a state of nature; how the eye can sweep landscapes of surpassing beauty, and ocean and mountain scenery of inspiring grandeur, and how the ear can be thrilled with inspiring or subduing strains of music, or the melody of magnificent poetry, and how the senses can drink in sweet odors and delicious tastes, and the manifold pleasures of feeling which cover the body at every pore' and yet, all we know of these material pleasures form but a hint of those exultant joys of the glorified senses in an immortal body. Perhaps there will be senses belonging to our glorified bodies which we do not now possess, and of which we have no conception. Our glorified senses will possess a range of action, and a quickness and delicacy of power, which we cannot now imagine. The eye in our glorified bodies will be both telescopic and microscopic, so that we can see all objects millions and billions of miles away without having to use a telescope, and then we can see the infinitesimal atoms of all things at a glance, without having to use a microscope as we do now. What must the joys of vision be, which can sweep out in one tranquil gaze over the multiplied splendor of millions of worlds, and at the same time delight itself in piercing through the perfections of God that lie hid away in every dew drop and every grain of sand! At present our ears are capable of receiving only a small range of sounds, and if a sound rises too high, we fail to hear it; or if it sinks below a certain pitch, we fail to hear it. There are thousands of sounds constantly vibrating through the earth and air, which are either too loud or too low for the capacity of our ears. Now think of the joys of sound in the boundless sweep of celestial music, which a glorified ear can receive. It would seem that the joys of the glorified bodies of the saints would alone constitute a whole heaven of bliss.

2. The Glorified Mind. The heavenly joys of a glorified intellect will transcend even those of the glorified physical senses. In contrast with the intellectual pleasures that we now have, our understandings will drink in unlimited seas of heavenly truth and beauty, perfectly free from all error or heresy, from all mistake, blunder or confusion of any kind whatever. On account of the imperfections in all earthly knowledge, we have to be re-learning, changing our views, correcting our measurements, and the joys of knowledge are crippled by uncertainty. But when our intellects see all things in their true light, and their beautiful harmony, and their correct relations with cloudless certainty, and with an unbroken tranquility of vision behold the secrets of creation, of science, and philosophy, perfectly free from ' all mist, and then have the mental capacity for embracing in one vast system all the works of God in their various departments, and of seeing how the whole hangs suspended, like a beautiful dream, in the will of God, it will be an overflowing bliss to our understandings, beyond anything we now know of the thrill of poetry, or the gladness of some new discovery. Then think of the expansion of our mental faculties in the glorified state, with the disclosure, it may be, of many new faculties for which we have no use in our earthly state, and these mental faculties so adapted to angels, and saints, and all created things, as to instantaneously read them, interpret them, understand them, and then to possess all this knowledge with a calm and perfect self-consciousness, without ever being burdened, or distracted, or overexcited by such worlds of intellectual truth and grandeur! To have minds forever delivered from all prejudice, from all theological or geographical bias, from all sluggishness and monotony, and so invigorated as to forever expatiate in God, with constant freshness and elasticity of action, and to keep poised in the highest flights of universal knowledge, will certainly constitute one of the great joys of the heavenly state. Just imagine all the intellectual pleasures that belong to this fallen world, the joys of discovering new continents and islands, new stars, new substances in nature, new inventions, the joys of artists in painting pictures, in carving statues, in writing music, in writing poems, the joys of the composition of architects, of orators, of singers, and of scientists, and then take every sort of intellectual pleasure of the race, and lift it into the glorified state, and free it from all sorrow, or sin, from all disappointment, error or imperfection, and stamp on it the fixed radiance of everlasting glory, and you have a faint image of the joys in reserve for the intellects of the saints in heaven.

3. The Glorified Affections, The heart is the supreme organ of gladness, and many instances have occurred in which animals and human beings have dropped dead from the sudden access of insupportable joy. What will all the joys of glorified senses and intellects be in comparison with the sweetness and the magnificence of celestial love. Sin has devastated the affections of the human heart more terribly than it has the human intellect, or the five senses. Hence, when we descant on the pleasures of the understanding, or of the bodily senses, the children of men can more readily understand what we are talking about. But when we come to that deeper world of the heart-nature, where sin has wrought its worst effects, it is more difficult for the people of this world to understand the powerful operation of pure, unselfish, heavenly love. Notwithstanding the havoc sin has made with the human heart, human love is still the strongest of all the forces in the human race, and out of this human love comes the larger portion of all earthly happiness, though it is often in a thousand ways intermingled with sorrow, yet even sorrow in most instances is a form of pathetic love -- love under bruises, or love in tears. The joys of heavenly love will be immeasurably beyond the joys of our mere natural affections in this present life.

In order to form a proper conception of what our love will be in the heavenly state, we must put together a few Bible facts. There are two distinct kinds of love mentioned in the Greek Testament -- one is philos, which includes all the natural affections that men have by creation; and the other is agape, which includes the pure love in the divine nature, and such love as fills heaven and the angels. Now we know there are great joys in natural love, even before people are regenerated and brought into saving grace. When souls are saved and living in Christ, they not only have their natural affection, but they have that natural love brought up from nature into grace, and in addition to this, they have the love of God, which is entirely above nature, shed abroad in them by the Holy Spirit. Now, in the heavenly state, our natural love will not be annihilated, because it belongs to us as a part of our creation, the same as our five senses, or our intellects, but this natural affection will be glorified and flooded to the uttermost with the hot ocean of Divine love and the two kinds of love will be forever blended in an ineffable union, as that soul and body are united, even as Christ's divinity and humanity are united. The joys of heavenly love will consist in the following things: It will be a love that is perfectly

spotless, utterly free from selfishness, or self-seeking, or danger from the flesh, or from any taint of ill-feeling, or stain of earthliness. It will be a love forever fixed in holiness, without variation, or ebb-tide, or coldness, but an unchanging sweetness of character like the blue color in the sky, or the saltness in the sea, an everlasting warmth of heart like the nature of God. It will be a universal love, overflowing all creation -- God, angels and saints -- and running down in constant waves of sweetest benevolence to all the lower orders of creation. It will be a most conscious and intelligent love, and not a latent, quiescent principle in the heart, but a wide-awake, allglowing, all-melting, all-embracing, conscious love, most keenly felt, like a seraphic furnace in every glorified bosom. It will be an all-controlling love, possessing the intellect and the body and filling all the mental faculties, and all the glorified senses, in such a rapturous and allembracing power, that every part of soul and body will do its bidding. Here is a passage from the saintly Faber, on the bliss of heavenly love: "Oh, to turn our whole souls upon God, and souls thus expanded and thus glorified, to have our affections multiplied and magnified a thousandfold, and then girded up and strengthened by immortality to bear the beauty of God, to be unveiled before us and when strengthened, to be rapt by it into a sublime amazement which has no similitude on earth, to be carried away by the inebriating torrents of love, and yet be firm in the most steadfast adoration; to have passionate desire, yet without tumult or disturbance; to have the most bewildering intensity along with an unearthly calmness; to lose ourselves in God, and then find ourselves the more our own than ever; to love rapturously, and to be loved again still more rapturously; and then for our love to grow more rapturous still, and again the return of our love to be still outstripping what we gave, and still the great transparent waters of God's love to flow over us and overwhelm us, until the vehemence of our peace and adoration and joy reach beyond our most venturesome imagination; what is all this, but for our souls to live a life of the most intelligent ecstacy of love, and yet not to be shivered by the fiery heat,"

4. Glorified Society. Paul speaks of the riches that God has 'hn His inheritance in the saints," A human soul redeemed and sanctified by the precious blood of God's own dear Son, and filled with the graces of the Holy Spirit, is a treasure far more precious to our heavenly Father, than all the splendor and material wealth in millions of worlds. On account of our multiplied infirmities in our earthly state, we fail to see or appreciate or enjoy the fulness of the fellowship of those who compose the mystical body of Christ. One of the sorrows that comes to a humble and tender heart in this life is the clash of religious souls, the misunderstandings and the strife between those who really love Jesus, and the scarcity of broad-hearted and intelligent charity and fellowship. "We shall know each other better when the mists have cleared away." One of the great joys that await us in the heavenly kingdom is that of the most entrancing love and mutual appreciation' with the glorified society of angels and saints. The reciprocal joys in the society of heaven can be faintly imagined from the following considerations: We shall have a perfect and instantaneous recognition of every individual saints and probably every angel, of all the countless millions in the kingdom of heaven. Scripture tells us that We shall know even as also we are known," and again, "that we shall see eye to eye when the Lord brings again Zion." The apostles at the transfiguration recognized Moses and Elijah, whom they had never seen. In our present state, most of our knowledge is acquired by the slow process of learning, but in the glorified state knowledge will come through the organ of intuition and by quick flashes of supernatural revelation. Hence the very moment we meet the blessed ones in heaven, we will know by spiritual instinct just who they are, their name, their personality, the great traits that make up their special character, and also know their rank in the heavenly kingdom. What a joy will such recognition contain!

Another form of this joy will be in the mutual, whole-hearted appreciation of each other's character and history, and of the variety of graces and gifts. In the Bible, God compares the righteous to various kinds of trees of the Lord's planting, such as the cedar, the box, the myrtle, the oak, the vine, the palm tree, the olive, and the orange, each of which has a special growth and beauty, a special perfume, ornament and utility. The saints are also compared to various precious stones, as the diamond, the emerald, the ruby, the amethyst, and others that make up the twelve distinct kinds of gems -- "the living stones" that go into the structure of the New Jerusalem. No imagination we now have can calculate the delicate and multiplied joys we shall have in heaven, flowing out from the appreciation of all the varieties of the saints of all ages. Those whose gifts and traits of character, of calling and life work, were so unlike and seemingly so opposite while on earth, will in heaven be perfectly understood, appreciated and mutually loved and honored with a most intelligent and generous appreciation. To mingle in those radiant throngs will be like walking through a divine flower garden, where there is an infinite variety of flowers, each adorned with separate beauty and decked in a shade of singular color, and emitting a peculiar perfume belonging only to itself, and each one essential to the perfection of the entire garden.

Many of the things for which God-loving souls are now hated, ostracised, criticised, and misunderstood, will then blossom forth in such light and grace and fragrance, as to make them more appreciated and more tenderly loved. In many ways, the bruises of earth will make the perfumes of heaven. "Again, our joy in glorified society will be intensified by a personal love for each and every one in the kingdom of heaven. Our affections will not be blind and indiscriminate, but so strengthened and expanded in divine love, that, like God, there will be in us a particular form of love for every separate angel and saint. In addition to all this, there will be special circles of heavenly friendship, in which the countless throngs of the redeemed will be in various ranks and companies. Paul says that in the resurrection the saints shall be like the stars, and that "one star differs from another star in glory The stars go in families and circles and various magnitudes. There will be thousands of ranks and degrees of reward, of honor and capacity in heaven. Jesus, when on earth, had His special friends, and an inner circle with whom He had naturally more private and personal fellowship. Jesus had a perfect human nature, and in accordance therewith He had His private and personal friendships, the same as angels and saints; and this, instead of being a hindrance in any way to His virtues and graces, was an essential part of the very perfection of His humanity. The bliss of the heavenly state will be heightened from the fact that there will be circles and families and bands and different ranks of angels and saints, who are specially kindred spirits, with similar gifts and tastes and ministries. This is beautifully set forth by the different gates and various foundations and the diversified precious stones that make up the New Jerusalem. Each glorified soul will find endless joy in this heavenly variety, and yet a more private and hidden joy in its own circle of kindred spirits.

Another feature of glorified social joy will be the utterly unselfish delight we will have in the happiness of others. The purest joy that we can have on earth is that of making others happy, and the gladness we have in seeing them so. A mother enjoys the happiness of her little children, and to see them glad is a greater joy to her than to the children themselves. That eminent

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Baint, Alfred Cookman, in one of his letters, gives an account of visiting the Christian home of a young married couple and tells us that as he saw their happiness with each other in their new home, he felt a most exquisite delight spring up in his heart, to see their joys, and that he felt as if the pure gladness of their young hearts in a transcendent way had become his own happiness. This will constitute one of the joys of heaven, that we will feel an unutterable galdness in seeing others rewarded, and in the beauty of their crowns, and the honor of their various ranks, and in the richness of their multiplied gifts, and thus our joy in the blessedness of others will be multiplied as many times as there are happy spirits in the countless hosts of our Father's kingdom.

5. The Joys of Glorified Service. The activities of the glorified state, the lofty responsibilities with whidi we shall be invested, the thrones of authority to which we may be appointed, the delicate and solemn stewardship entrusted to our hands, the exercise of all our faculties in carrying out the plans of our heavenly Father, the songs we shall sing, the entrancing music that our fingers will sweep from golden harps, the melodious hallelujahs of praise that our immortal voices will pour forth, with the diapason thunder roll of the organ of eternity, will form one of the mighty streams of heavenly joy.

The story is told of a company of monks, debating among themselves as to what would be the greatest joy in heaven, and several having given their opinion, they asked the quiet old Thomas a'Kempis his opinion, and he pointed to that verse in Revelation, "His servants shall serve Him," Nowhere in the Bible is it represented that the spirits of departed saints in Paradise are engaged in active service while their bodies sleep in death, but their condition is spoken of as "resting" and "being comforted," But at the second coming of Jesus, when the saints rise in the first resurrection, there are scores of Scripture passages that describe the powers, the activities and ministries of the glorified saints, as coming back from the wedding supper with Jesus (Rev. 19:11, 14), and as taking part with Christ in judging the world, and the wicked nations (Psa. 149:5-9), and as sitting with Christ on His millennial throne (Luke 22: 28-30 and Rev. 2:26, 27), and as exercising authority as princes and priests over all nations during the thousand year reign of Christ (Rev. 20:4-6 and Dan. 7:27); all of which opens up to us the peculiar joys of heavenly royalty. There is a joy in the handling of great wealth, and in the exercise of authority and power, which, when it shall be absolutely free from all self-seeking, from all foolishness or severity or indiscretion, and exercised in boundless love and wisdom, will be indeed a royal joy and a drop from that infinite happiness that God has in the exercise of His absolute dominion over all His creation. The saints will enjoy their rewards, and as the songs of the reapers in the harvest field attest their gladness in gathering the golden grain, so at the end of this age, when the harvest of the precious blood is reaped, and the rewards are given to God's faithful ones, they will not be empty honors, but various kinds of substantial happiness. And beyond the millennium, the glorified saints will have an immense service of ministry to many worlds and generations in the ever-increasing kingdom of God; for we are told in the Greek that God will show forth "His glory in the church, by Christ Jesus, throughout all the generations of the age of the ages," Eph. 3:21.

6. The Joy of the Beatific Vision. To see God's face in cloudless light, to gaze in rapturous adoration upon the unimaginable beauties of the countenance of the Almighty, will be the crown, the uttermost limit, of all the joys of heaven. All the pleasures of our glorified senses, and the delights of our illuminated intellects, and the expansion of our faculties in the resurrected state, and the sweet meltings of celestial love, and the gladness of heavenly society, and of our multiplied ministries, are but twilight joys, are but the outer fringes of heavenly bliss, compared with that ecstatic awe, that ineffable gladness of seeing the face of God. We shall see the glory of the three divine Persons beaming from the face of our blessed Lord Jesus. And then, through the avenue of His glorified humanity, our spiritual eyes will gaze undazzled on the three personalities in the blazing fires of the Godhead, each distinctly recognized and adored and loved, with such heavenly passion of joy as would burst the vessels of our created natures, unless they were girded with glorified capacities. We shall see the eternal generation of the Son in the bosom of the Father, and we shall watch the ever-radiant procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son, like a gulf stream of whitest fire, ever streaming forth as it did before the worlds were made, as it flows now and will continue to pour forth in an endless flow of the mutual love of the Father and the Son to endless ages. We shall see the unity of the Divine essence, and the simplicity of the Divine nature, and all the beautiful attributes of the Divine character, shining in their unchanging beauty through all the changes of creation's history. We shall know the meaning and the full fruition of those crowning words, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world," "enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." To feel God sensibly near us, and His spiritual presence in us, is the greatest joy of earth; so to see Him face to face will be the crowning joy of heaven.

"When the last feeble step has been taken

     And the gates of that city appear.

And the beautiful songs of the angels

     Float out on my listening ear;

When all that now seems so mysterious

     Will be bright and as clear as the day.

Then the toils of the road will seem nothing.

     When I get to the end of the way."