With this sweet conviction can tribulation harm her? I trow not. Rather do her crosses and her trials cause her lonely and unsatisfied heart to rise each day more purely, tenderly, devotedly, upward towards God. Then, too, she tremblingly believes she may, in a brighter sphere, be united in the sweet connubial tie to one who shall fully realize the ideal of her soul. So, loving and beloved, she will no longer dwell
“As one companionless
In essence, heart distressed and pining ever
With anguished yearning for a tenderness
Forever widely sought, experienced never.”[[3]]
[3]. “Lyric of the Golden Age,” by Rev. T. L. Harris.
Is she mistaken? I cannot think so. Is it possible to form too exalted an idea of the joys “God hath prepared for them that love him,” which, we are told, “it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive?” Yet, we may faintly shadow those ecstatic raptures, if we remember that every faculty of the mind, each affection of the spirit, will then be fully and forever occupied in fulfilling its highest destinies—Love, Knowledge, Use.[[4]] Sublime trinity! Such the occupations of the angels throughout eternity; and for those who here exercise themselves in these Christian graces, heaven has already begun on earth!
[4]. See Swedenborg’s works; also, “Arcana of Christianity,” by Rev. T. L. Harris.
Nor do these truly catholic doctrines militate against a life of activity here—they are rather anti-monastic—teaching that the life of the body is necessary for the soul, and that the happiness of the spirit hereafter will be proportionate to the use we make of all our faculties and talents in the terrestrial state; while the contrary must be expected in the world of spirits, from a life of idleness; truly blessed they
“in this loud stunning tide