And though the redeemed from earth are not yet revealed to us as being engaged in intellectual pursuits, nevertheless two of them have revisited the earth and appeared in the old land of their sojourning in visible form, and bearing the names of Moses and Elias, so familiar to the Church of God, and have spoken in language intelligible to the children of men, and upon a subject of all the most absorbing in its interest to the Church above and below—­the decease which Christ was to accomplish at Jerusalem!

But I dare not enlarge on this part of my subject, however inviting it may be.  Let me only implore of you to consecrate your intellects to God’s service; and glorify Him in “soul and spirit” as well as in “body.”  Reverence Truth in every department, as it is the expression of the mind and will of God, and seek it in humility, and with a deep sense of your responsibility as to how you search and what you believe.  And surely it is an elevating and comforting thing to know, with reference to those who on earth were adorned by God with high intellects, cultivated with care, and sanctified for their Master’s service; who thirsted for truth, and relished its acquisition with peculiar delight, and the more so when it led them directly to Him who is Truth itself, and enabled them the better to behold His glory, that their powers are now finding ample field for their exercise, and can orb themselves around without a limit.  Not therefore with sadness but with joy we can turn from beholding the dead unmeaning eye of the lifeless body, through which the noble mind once shone with mild intellectual lustre, and contemplate the same mind rising over the everlasting hills, amidst the fresh unsullied brightness of a new-born day, and advancing for ever without a cloud amidst the endless glories of the upper sky.

One other suggestion as to duty in connexion with this part of our subject:  take a peculiarly tender, sympathising, and thoughtful care of those who are deprived of the noble gift of intellect, and who in God’s providence may be cast on your mercy.  Walk by faith towards them.  See them not as they are, but as they shall be.  Act as you would wish to have done when you meet them in that world of light where we shall no longer see through a glass darkly, and where even he who seems exceeding fierce shall sit at the feet of Jesus, meek as a child, and in his right mind.  Thank God, “there shall be no night there!”

III.

OUR DEVOTIONAL LIFE.

Our joy in heaven will, above all, be derived from the perfection of our moral being.  We shall be “without fault before the throne of God.”  “He shall present us to Himself without spot, or blemish, or wrinkle, or any such thing.”