towards their parents as children.  Thus in the clear light of that blessed land we shall see and know our kindred, and shall be recognized, and known by them.  All family ties will be re-knit; all home-relationships will be restored; all the links of affection will be renewed.  The babe that withered in your arms like a frost-stricken flower in winter, will come forth clad in redemption robes, to embrace you there; and one of your joys will be a conscious reunion with him:—­

  “We shall go home to our Father’s house: 
    To our Father’s house in the skies,
  Where the hope of our souls shall have no blight,
    Our love no broken ties;
  We shall roam on the banks of the river of peace,
    And bathe in its blissful tide;
  And one of the joys of our heaven shall be,
    The little boy that died!”

And that sainted mother of yours shall greet you there.  In your earth-home, you and she were united in faith and love and hope; and in the morning of the resurrection you shall ascend together from the family grave-yard; and together bow in grateful adoration before the throne of God.

And oh, what a glorious meeting in heaven that will be, when all the members of the Christian household shall unitedly surround the marriage supper of the Lamb!  It will be joyful beyond conception.  There they “shall meet at Jesus’ feet,—­shall meet to part no more!” No one is absent.  Bright faces will meet there; bounding hearts will meet there; and on the banks of the river of life they will walk hand in hand, as they did unitedly in this vale of tears.  “There is hereafter to be no separation in that family.  No one is to lie down on a bed of pain.  No one to wander away into temptation.  No one to sink into the arms of death.  Never in heaven is that family to move along the slow procession, clad in the habiliments of woe, to consign one of its members to the tomb!”—­REV.  A. BARNES.

If heaven is our better home, where the members of Christian families meet to part no more; if dreams cannot picture a world so fair; and if eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor human heart conceived, the felicity of its peaceful inhabitants, then we should greatly rejoice that our pious kindred have been taken there, and that we are blessed with the hope of reunion with them in that heavenly home:—­

  ...  “If to Christ, with faith sincere,
    Your babe at death was given,
  The kindred tie that bound you here,
  Though rent apart with many a tear,
    Shall be renewed in heaven!”

In our tent-home, we should cultivate spiritual longings after heaven, and live in the true hope and assurance of entering there.  The soul of the Christian, conscious of the emptiness of all things here, rests and expatiates in a life to come.  In proportion to his preparation for it, and his nearness to it, will be the depth of his aspirations and the assurance of his hope.  The widowed mother, who feels that part of her household is in heaven and that soon she will join them there, yearns with all the pining of home-sickness, for departure to the promised land, which is far better.