shall be revived. Our risen friend shall be in very deed — form, look, voice — the friend that we have known and loved. Our risen brother will be all that we knew him here when, hand in hand, we passed through the wilderness together, cheered with the blessed thought that no separa- tion could part us long, and that the grave itself could unlink neither hands nor hearts.
CHAPTER VHX
THE REUNION.
The family has been all along a scatter* ed one. Not only has it been scattered along the ages, but it has been dispersed over every land. " Children of the dis~ persion " might well be the name of its members. They have no continuing city, nay, no city at all that they can call their own ; sure of nothing here beyond their bread and raiment; no where able to reckon upon a certain dwelling, yet having always the promise of it some where.
Besides this scattering, arising from their being thus called out of every kindred and nation, there are others more bitter. There is the scattering which persecution makes,
THE REUNION. 109
when it drives them from city to city, There is the scattering which adversity lakes, when happy circles are broken up, and their fragments sent far asunder. There is the scattering which oftentimes jealousy and contention and selfish rivalry produce, even among the saints. There is the scattering which bereavement makes, when strong ties are broken, and warm love spilt like water on the ground ; when fellowship is rent asunder, and living sympathies chilled by death, and tears of choking anguish are all the relief of loneli- ness and sorrow.
As Israel was scattered among the na- tions, so have the saints been ; not indeed like Israel, because of the wrath of God against them, but still scattered every where. " The Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other," (Deut. xxviii. 64,) were God's words to Israel, and the
110 THE REUNION.
church feels how truly they suit her con* dition as a scattered flock.
In primitive times, and often since that, in days of trouble and persecution, it was ■ truly and literally a scattering, just as when the autumn wind shakes down and tosses the ripe leaves to and fro. But in our day it is not so much a scattering, as a simple dwelling asunder, — by the calling out of every nation the few that make up the little flock. It is a gathering out, but not a gathering together. It is one family, yet the members know not, see not each other in the flesh. They are drawn by the Father's hand, and according to the Father's purpose, out of kingdoms and families wide asunder. They have no local centre, either of interest, or of resi- dence, or of government ; no common home, no common meeting-place, save that which faith gives them now in their Head above, or that which hope assures them
THE REUNION. Ill
of in the world to come, where they shall come together, face to face, as one house- hold, gathered under one roof, and seated around one table.
This separation and apparent disunion is not natural or congenial. For there is a hidden magnetic virtue which uncon- sciously and irresistibly draws them to- wards each other. Separation is the pre- sent law of the kingdom, but this only because election is the law of the dispensa- tion. There is an affinity among the members which neither time nor distance can destroy. There is a love kindled they know not how, kept alive they know not how, but strong and unquenchable, the love of kin, the love of brotherhood :
No distance breaks the tie of blood, Brothers are brothers evermore. —
A.nd they feel this. Knit by the ties of a
strange and unearthly union, they have a
conscious feeling of oneness which nothing
l 2
112 THE REUNION.
can shake. Deep hidden in each other's u heart of hearts/' they cannot consent to be perpetually asunder, but eagerly an- ticipate the day of promised union. .
But there is another kind of separation which they have had to endure. Death has torn them from each other. From Abel downward there has been one long scene of bereavement. The griefs of part- ing make up the greatest amount of earth- ly suffering among the children of men. And from these griefs the saints have not been exempted. Bitter have been the farewells that have been spoken on earth, — around the death-bed, or in the prison, or on the sea-shore, or on the home- threshold, or in the city of strangers, — the farewells of men who knew that they should no more meet till the grave gave up its trust. Death has been the great scatterer, and the tomb has been the great receiver of the fragments.
Our night of weeping has taken much
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of its gloom and sadness from these rend- ings asunder. The pain of parting, in the case of the saints, has much to alleviate it, but still the bitterness is there. We feel that we must separate, and though it be only for a while, still our hearts bleed with the wound.