Do angels carry you to heaven?

A happy silence—a hovering upwards—then a dazzling glory before my eyes—a rapturous feeling of freedom and deliverance. 

I was dead, and the angels were carrying me to heaven.

And now I was in heaven.

Put together all the rapture, which can—at supreme moments—make your heart happy— blend together all those emotions of happiness and bliss, which, sometimes, and for a brief space, pass like the golden clouds of evening across the sky of an earthly life, and then you will have some notion of my experience when I could say to myself—

In heaven—and saved!

Oh, that I could describe how the saved smile!

You know that love unites—and to love means to be united. 

Love exercises a power of attraction whose influence extends to the uttermost parts of heaven—and brings together all that are united by love.

Let me see God. 

Not yet may you behold the thrice Holy, but come to Him whom once even the poor earth was allowed to look upon—and who is our Saviour and Brother!

If salvation offered nothing beyond the communion—the close, uninterrupted communion of those who love, and who belong to one another—even this would be enough to make one forget all the pleasure and beauty of earth.

The hosts of the blessed are innumerable—and in our Father's house are many mansions.

But now look this way with me and see how the saved approach. 

When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. 

And they are, at first, like them that dream—that give themselves up to some pleasant dream-image—that behold it without stirring, or wishing, but when they become conscious that it is indeed no dream, but full and fair reality, then the rest of the verse is fulfilled, and their mouth is filled with laughter, and their tongue with praise.

The beginning of the work must take place on earth, but there is room for its continuance and perfection in heaven.

There is no fear in love—and how should we who are under the good Shepard's care, fear?

This alone we know from the beginning of the heavenly life—that if His will is done, whatever is done, is well.

I am in peace, and my happiness is enchanted a thousandfold by the comparisons I can make between now and then. 

Do not then wish me back on earth! 

Do not speak of the joys, which might yet have awaited me there, for if you could bestow them on me, it would be like lighting a candle for one who is in perpetual sunlight. 

Do not say that I should have liked to share in your welfare and that of your family. 

I have overcome—

Do not call me back to the battle!

How many earthly cares would cease if the dwellers on earth would give its due weight to the saying 

Cast all your care upon God, for He careth for you—

Or would take to heart the Saviour's warning against anxiety? 

It is really necessary to assure you from heaven that such words of God are quite true—that the hairs of your head are really numbered—that all your affairs are open to the eye of God—that it is His holy and gracious will to make all things work together for your good?

A short fervent prayer is often of the greatest consequence in heaven.

 

Pray—do not forget that prayer is the only bridge by which thy soul can draw near to heaven, its future home.

 

Blessed be God who lets nothing that He has planted die.

We are always at home—being always in our Father's house. 

And yet the glorious length and breadth of Paradise is ever open to us. 

Since no frost threatens—no need of sleep detains—no night alarms us—the dwellings, of which there are so many in our Father's house, are nothing that remind us of protection or refuge—

They are only homes—nay, after all, this whole great Paradise is our home and abode.

Paradise is like earth—a creation of God, but a much more glorious and perfect creation.

It is, however, easy to see that both were designed by the same Architect. 

And since the earthly, and the heavenly creation resemble each other, in somewhat the same manner, as the original resembles its imperfect copy, one can speak of the glories of Paradise even to an earthly ununderstanding. 

Just take from the earthly creation all that reminds of death and corruption—

Imagine all traces of the perishableness manifested by all that grows and blooms removed—

Let all colours be brighter—

All blossoms more fully developed—

All perfumes more exquisite—

Let it be always May, and then you will get at least some faint notion of the glory that surrounds us.

Every soul provides its surroundings in accordance with its own nature—

It not only lives in, but forms its home. 

I have my flowerbed in heaven, as I had on earth. 

And my favourite flower—mignonette—is still my favourite in heaven. 

Its brilliant, tender corollas remind me of many a happy hour on earth. 

It was mignonette that your father plucked for me, when, shortly after, I became acquainted with him, I was taking a walk with him in the garden. 

It was mignonette that you brought me when—having escaped the hand of the nurse—you went alone for the first time into the garden to get your mother a flower, and it was the scent of mignonette, which reached me, when, on the morning of my dying day, I looked out at the rising sun—

You have also planted mignonette on my grave. 

Therefore, I rear it here too. 

Only to rear flowers in heaven no longer means to keep them from harm, or to promote their growth, but to understand them as masterpieces of God.

My favourite place is under the green jasmine arbour—thence, my eyes wander to the lovely lake, whose sparkling waves are transparent to the very bottom. 

Water is the eye of the landscape. 

The streams of heaven satisfy the desires of contemplative souls. 

Like eyes beaming with love, which fully and entirely show the life and feelings of the soul, they look at us, and speak to us, in clear and intelligible language of the power and goodness of Him who called the whole creation—the heavenly, as well as the earthly, into existence, for the purpose of making the being made after His image happy.

And when you seek me in spirit, and would like to know where I am, remember one thing, I am at home with the Lord, and glad to be at home. 

Do not wish you could find out the spot in the starry skies, which forms the abode of the blessed, for these starry skies are like a curtain which conceals a secret. 

You may know the curtain accurately, observe its several threads, and analyse them into their component elements, but you cannot thereby look behind it. 

The Milky Way with its starry host, the seven stars and Orion are the decoration of this curtain. 

When it is once drawn aside before your eyes, you see more than the curtain allowed you to see. 

But on earth, where you compute by paces, and are inspired with a certain amount of dismay by an accurate conception of the distance between two neighbouring stars, you have no measure for the infinite and eternal. 

Do not be afraid—only believe—and take care that you, too, one day come home.

Salvation is the free gift of God. 

Here in heaven, where our past life with all its shadows stands clearly before our eyes, and where we perceive that anything we may have done right was the result of training, and, therefore, not at all to be regarded in the light of merit, there is no one who could entertain the notion of having earned salvation. 

On the contrary, we thankfully acknowledge how much must have been forgiven for us to be saved. 

We are just creatures of God, corporeally and spiritually, and are happy to be such. 

We are all guests at the table of the great and wealthy Lord to whom we have given nothing, to whom here also we can give nothing All alike loved, all alike happy.

To be happy is to serve.

Now they who served on earth, whether in livery, or in the uniform of a general, gladly and peacefully serve one another, and thereby Him who came not to be served, but to serve.

As long as we live on earth, we think that we know ourselves, and are aware of our weak points, but it would be very salutary for men if they could, for moment, behold themselves, nd their lives, in the light of eternity, or even of somnambulism.

All the sins of my past life stand before me without palliation, just as they were, with all their evil consequences, and in their unfortunate concatenation with the sins of others. 

Thanks and praise be to God that this contemplation contributes to my knowledge of the wisdom and mercy of God who did not suffer many of these weeds to grow, and knew how to repair much that 1 had done amiss. 

I see there a host of inconsiderate or unkind words. 

The one saying—What do I care? stands before my soul. 

I see the host of sinful inclinations and desires. 

I see numbers of sins of omission. 

You will readily understand why I have told you this, for everyone has his account book, and it is during the period of his earthly life that it gets filled.

Faith and unbelief are not inherited. 

Much as religious or irreligious habits and views of life may be inherited, and important as may be the influence of education and companionship upon the inner life, still every man has individually to meet the question whether he will hear and believe or not. 

Every believing soul must grow and increase much in heaven before it is perfect.

When you behold a home on earth in which the ways and doings of the children are watched over by the faithful guardianship of parental love—where evil is warded off from them—where efforts are made to repair the consequences of their folly, and everything is done that can conduce to their welfare, you have before your eyes a picture of the superintendence of Divine Providence. 

Though sin rules in the human race, and God permits this to a certain degree, still all your actions and omissions—all your dealings, and their results, are in His Almighty Hand, and everywhere His angels are fulfilling their office as His messengers, for the good of mankind. 

And when you encounter the great enigmas of the divine government of the world, or doubts concerning His omnipotence and the universality of His loving purposes beset you, remember that you are far more insignificant and deficient in understanding with respect to the Almighty than your child is compared with yourself. 

His ways are wonderful, but they are also holy and good. 

And nothing wears so different an aspect when looked at from heaven, as human prosperity and adversity.

The life of man and the leading of Providence are like an artistic piece of tapestry whose right side is turned towards heaven.

Divine wisdom wins its greatest triumphs in just those cases where men are most inclined to doubt it.

A dear Christian man who is now in heaven once told a story of a sick child who was on a ship with her mother. 

There were numbers of falling stars, and the little girl asked what they were, and where they came from. 

Then her mother explained them to be lovely flowers blown over from the garden of Paradise to which she would shortly go.

On the other hand, the souls of children who come home are like blossoms of the tree of human nature blown over from the earth to us—not to wither, but to go on blooming gaily and gladly.

Does not a thoughtful mind contemplate with purest joy the life and movement of children?

And those who on earth loved to minister to children, those friends of the Saviour are permitted to do so in heaven.

What a pleasant sight is here offered by the souls of those children who were no sooner born into earthly-life than they were immediately removed from it. 

Those whose soul-life was still sleeping in the germ are like lovely and delicate flowers. 

But a light is shining in the calyx of these flowers—

The light of Baptism, which gives them rights of citizenship in heaven.

On earth, the child who plays grows up by imitation in the ways and doings—and also in the follies—of his surroundings. 

In heaven, he breathes only a heavenly life.

Look at this child—

It is the child of a poor man. 

It was very little cared for during the four years it lived on earth. 

It became acquainted with the hardships of life. 

The angels have just brought it to heaven. 

How astonished it looks at all the beauty around it, and stretches out its little hands to the companions from whom no timidity keeps it back!

And that one is my child! 

My eyes always seek it, and then rest upon it with maternal joy. 

As on earth, his happiness is mine also, for they are not merely ties of blood that bind a mother to her child. 

He is a copy of my nature, and much more plainly than on earth do I see in him a picture of my own being, and perceive at the same time the impress of his father's and of our parents' qualities. 

Not merely was his body born from my body, but his soul-life also is in wonderful and mysterious combination with mine. 

He is not my creature, but he is a gift bestowed upon me through myself by means of God's marvellous creative power. 

And what God has joined together continues joined in heaven also.

And even on those who are taken from earth childless, a happiness beams here, which they have hitherto been deprived of. 

Thousands of baptised children do not find their parents in heaven and would wait for them in vain. 

What a pleasant sight it is when maiden souls—whether they departed in youthful or mature age—open here in heaven to maternal happiness and join themselves with some solitary child-soul, which most resembles their own nature. 

Still more pleasant is it when such a soul, already matured in the love of Christ on earth, draws round it whole circles of little children and serves them with ministering love. 

How beautiful is it when the solitary man who has as yet been deprived of the fellowship of love and association with believing friends, and who is just beginning the life of heaven, acquires maturity and strength by love to children and learns in their service to understand and value the fellowship of love!

Joy is the keynote to which the soul is tuned.

God's days have beautiful sunsets, and joy and happiness must grow and increase.

We are in heaven, where the Crucified and Risen Jesus reigns.

Here in heaven, I am reading of ever fresh proofs of the fatherly love of God, and I also understand my own inner life better and more thoroughly at every fresh observation.

Add together the morning freshness and the evening tranquillity—that vivid morning feeling, which flows through our whole being, and the peaceful evening feeling inspired by the hope of slumber, and then you will have some notion how we feel in a land where no sun rises, or sets, where no midday heat exhausts, and unnerves, and where the rapturous joy of existence is always equal.

A strange sight for heaven, men equipped for battle, uniforms and weapons!

When shall I be, my God, with Thee, and see Thy face?

See—He is passing by. 

All souls turn towards Him. 

Without words, His look speaks. 

Streams of blessing flow from his upraised hands. 

John is with Him—the first who quite understood Him when he wrote In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

It is a work of love, which the Saviour is come to perform. 

His ways, and those on which He sends His messengers are simply ways of love. 

They have brought up from earth the soul of a youth—an idiot from his birth. 

The angels do not depart from him, they stand around him, and their eyes seek the Saviour. 

The youth looks like one dreaming—a smile, such as he never had on earth, passes over his poor imbecile face. 

And have the angels brought him to heaven, him who did not believe? 

Yes, him whom Jesus loved, nay, whom He specially loved, and was expecting. 

They bring him to the Lord, as on earth men brought the deaf mute to Him—

He lays His hands upon his head. 

Then the slumbering soul awakes—

Streams of life thrill through his body—his eyes see clearly. 

It is like a new creation—

Thus may it have been when the first man became a living soul. 

The Saviour delivers him again to the angels who go with him. 

The man who has been healed as yet says nothing, he only listens, but he takes in all he is told.

Then an aged man presses through the hosts of the blessed and hastens to the restored one. 

He presses him to his heart—

He caresses him—

My son, my son, he cries in supplicating tone. 

But the healed man looks at him cheerfully, but like a stranger. 

He knows him no more than all else that he meets with. 

Then a mark of inexpressible pain, such as one is not accustomed to behold in heaven, passes over the countenance of the aged man. 

He rushes to the Lord's feet—

Saviour, he cries, alas that unhappy hour of guilt—the poor child! 

He said nothing more, but the Saviour lifted him up, and said—

I atoned for heavier guilt on the cross—

Go in peace—thy faith hath saved thee. 

We were silently remembering the words about the sins of the fathers being visited upon the children.

It is folly to say that on earth one knows nothing of heaven. 

You know enough of it to rejoice by anticipation.

I am today thinking of the words—

He that goeth on his way weeping and beareth precious seed shall doubtless come again with joy, and bring his sheaves with him. 

Truly this is not the first sheaf my God has allowed me to bring with joy.

What a pure atmosphere we breathe in heaven. 

How utterly free it is from the miasmas of falsehood, which poison the intercourse of the dwellers on earth!

He who is wise is good.

Here heavenly wisdom reigns—

There are no more serpents, nor that wisdom of the serpent so indispensable for poor earthly life.

The voice of our heart is the voice of God.

One is our Master, and we are all brethren.

The works of God are always before our eyes and reflected in our souls in their pure form.

Tragedy laments, comedy laughs at sin—we have overcome it. 

We no longer need to weep, for we have departed from the vale of tears—nor to laugh, for we live in constant rejoicing of spirit.

The dwellers in heaven rejoice when you, who dwell below—

Feel happy in the school of life—

Willingly perform your limited duties—

Keep your little festivals in your respective circles and find your world in the schoolroom of earth, but life has to succeed to school time, and childish things have to be put away.

Man is made for life, and that need not be declared from heaven. 

He who created masses out of atoms, destined to a constant circulation, raised man above this circulation by bestowing on him the breath of life. 

His soul has no share in the play of atoms or else how would this be so clearly reflected in the soul if the soul itself participated in the motion?

If the inhabitants of earth could take a view of the full enjoyment of an ever equal harmony of life—conscious indeed of deficiency and imperfection, but seeing at the same time happy and unobstructed growth, they would believe—no, they would see, and that they are not to do.

Look at all that is good or great or beautiful—

It stands complete before you when its birthday has dawned, but you did not see it originate and grow.

Learn then to have patience also in the spiritual life until the seed of God grows, and do not take rapidly growing weeds for God's plants. 

But above all, do not lift up the veil of night with which God covers His work, lest by your impatience and temerity, you destroy the germs.

God is love. 

This is a mystery to the earthly spirit, although it can already bless the earthly heart. 

And with the knowledge of love, the power to love increases, for to love is to be like God.

For the soul made in God's image is destined to love and thirst after love—its nature is perfect when it loves.

Let us love one another is a saying of great significance for heaven, as well as earth.

Where men begin to set aside self for the sake of others—where sacrifices are made, and good is done for its own sake, we gladly see an image of the love of God.

Compassion is a divine help in learning to love.

Yes—

Onwards to the perfect love of God—to love towards all whom He loves. 

Even towards those whom we do not know. 

Love desires and learns to know—

As love increases, so does knowledge until love and knowledge will happily embrace all who dwell under the sceptre of Christ upon the new earth.

Eternal unfathomable ocean of love receive me that I may be submerged in thy waves.

And I too watch and pray. 

But I will wait for you at that hour at the gate of Paradise, hand in hand with your dear loving father. 

His eye sparkles—he has words of affection ready for you. 

You are coming! 

Not to the left, but to us, in the name of Jesus, I stretch out my arms—

Blessed be God!