* Ps. xxxvi.
In heaven, that awful death shall be no more. We have the word of the Living God for it: "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes: and death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more, for the former things are passed away."* In very deed, "the former things have passed away"—sorrow, mourning, poverty, labor, the vicissitudes of time, temptations to sin—all these things have passed away, never more to return. The children of God have entered into the enjoyment of their inheritance, which shall never be torn from them, because "death shall be no more." Never shall they see the dawn of a day when father and mother must bid farewell—a long and sad farewell—to their heart-broken children, because "death shall be no more." Nevermore will there come a day upon which affectionate children must print the last kiss upon the cold and pallid cheek of their dying parents, because "death shall be no more." Never more shall we see our kindred and friends slowly descending into the grave, nor hear the cold and cruel clods of earth falling upon them, because "death shall be no more." "Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?"+ This is the joyful song of triumph which ever resounds through the vaults of heaven, because "The just shall live forever more: and their reward is with the Lord, and the care of them with the Most High. Therefore shall they receive a kingdom of glory, and a crown of beauty at the hand of the Lord."**
* Apoc. xxi. + 1 Cor. xv. ** Wis. v.
In conclusion, let me exhort you, Christian soul, to meditate often and seriously on the happiness of heaven. Such meditations, besides deepening our knowledge of God, and of the things He has prepared for them that love him, have a wonderful power of detaching our hearts from the transitory pleasures and honors of this world. They, moreover, create in our soul an unquenchable thirst for the vision and possession of God, while they infuse into us a new courage to battle manfully against all the obstacles which beset our path in the practice of virtue.
Such meditations fill us, moreover, with a laudable and noble ambition of reaching a high degree of union with God. This was the ambition of the saints, and it should be ours also. It was this desire of a most intimate union with God, that caused them to deny themselves even the most innocent pleasures of this world, and to undergo sufferings, the bare recital of which makes our poor nature shudder. They knew that "our present tribulation, which is momentary and light, worketh for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory."* Their meditations on eternal truths had convinced them "that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come, that shall be revealed in us."+
* 2 Cor. iv. 17. + Rom. viii. 18.
In the thirty-seventh chapter of her life, St. Theresa speaks thus: "I would not lose, through any fault of mine, the least degree of further enjoyment. I even go so far as to declare that, if the choice were offered to me, whether I would rather remain subject to all the afflictions of the world, even to the end of it, and then ascend, by that means, to the possession of a little more glory in heaven; or else, without any affliction at all, enjoy a little less glory, I would most willingly accept of all the troubles and afflictions for a little more enjoyment, that so I might understand a little more of the greatness of God; because I see that he who understands more of Him, loves and praises Him so much the more." Here is the ambition of a great saint. It is not after crowns or sceptres, or the glory of this world, that she sighs, but after a single degree of higher enjoyment in heaven; and to obtain that, she is willing to remain suffering in this wretched world till the end of time.
Let such be your ambition in the future. If not in so sublime a degree, let it, at least, be directed only to the acquisition of "treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consume, and where thieves do not break through and steal."* Labor incessantly for that "inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, that cannot fade, reserved in heaven for you."+ "Be faithful until death," says our Lord Jesus Christ, "and I will give thee the Crown of Life."**
* Matt. vi. 19. + 1 Pet. i. 4. ** Apoc. ii. 10.