the subject of Christianity with him.  “And when they had appointed him a day, there came many to him into his lodging, to whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God,”—­to whom he explained the nature of the Christian religion,—­“persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets, from, morning till evening.”  The same apostle teaches the Romans, that “the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost;” and tells the Corinthians, that “the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power.”  In all these instances, the subjective signification prevails, and the kingdom of God is simply a system of truth, or a state of the heart.  And all are familiar with the sentiment, that heaven is a state, as well as a place.  All understand that one half of heaven is in the human heart itself; and, that if this half be wanting, the other half is useless,—­as the half of a thing generally is.  Isaac Walton remarks of the devout Sibbs: 

“Of this blest man, let this just praise be given, Heaven was in him, before he was in heaven.”

It is only because that in the eternal world the imperfect righteousness of the renewed man is perfected, and the peace of the anxious soul becomes total, and the joy that is so rare and faint in the Christian experience here upon earth becomes the very element of life and action,—­it is only because eternity completes the excellence of the Christian (but does not begin it), that heaven, as a place of perfect holiness and happiness, is said to be in the future life, and we are commanded to seek a better country even a heavenly.  But, because this is so, let no one lose sight of the other side of the great truth, and forget that man must “receive” the kingdom as well as “enter” it.  Without the right state of heart, without the mental correspondent to heaven, that beautiful and happy region on high will, like any and every other place, be a hell, instead of a paradise.[1] A distinguished writer represents one of his characters as leaving the Old World, and seeking happiness in the New, supposing that change of place and outward circumstances could cure a restless mind.  He found no rest by the change; and in view of his disappointment says:  “I will return, and in my ancestral home, amid my paternal fields, among my own people, I will say, Here, or nowhere, is America."[2] In like manner, must the Christian seek happiness in present peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, and must here in this life strive after the righteousness that brings tranquillity.  Though he may look forward with aspiration to the new heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth a perfected righteousness, yet he must remember that his holiness and happiness there is merely an expansion of his holiness and happiness here.  He must seek to “receive” the kingdom of God, as well as to “enter” it; and when tempted to relax his efforts, and to let down his watch, because the future life will not oppose so many obstacles to spirituality as this, and will bring a more perfect enjoyment with it, he should say to himself:  “Be holy now, be happy here. Here, or nowhere, is heaven.”