^ Sometimes it is a pain* that we know so little of God and of the things that are unseen and eternal ; sometimes they lose their reality to us, and our vision of God is dimmed and obscured and clouded, our sense of His presence vague and dull, our con- sciousness of His Fatherhood fitful and uncertain. How seldom we truly feel at home with God ! Like the Psalmist, we remember Him and are troubled ; instead of the love and affection of the child there is coldness, distrust, and a sense of distance ; we are not brightened as we should be by the perfectness of His sympathy and the abundance of His provision. In a world that is full of God, in lives that are daily loaded with His benefits, we fail so to see Him as to be made glad with the light of His countenance. Times there are, doubtless, when God is very near, and joy fills our hearts, and our devotion seems perfect ; but for most of us, it is all our trouble that God is not nearer, consciously nearer, dwelling in our house, standing at our right hand, a source of constant inspiration and gladness. Oh, the pain of those days and hours when He seems to have forsaken us and left us to our own poor resources and devices, when we begin to wonder if we have ever known Him, if He has ever called us to His service, if He is really on our side to help and shield and strengthen us ! Oh, those days, when we cannot pray, when the heavens are as brass, and no prayer will move in our hearts, and life seems joy- less and labour in vain ! If you have felt that pain, if ever in your heart you have known what it is to struggle for the con- sciousness of God's approval and the knowledge of His presence, it will be a kindling, inspiring, uplifting thought that the time is coming when we shall be children again in our Father's house, trustful, glad, free from fear — a household dwelling with God under the same roof, knit together as one great family brightened by the Father's presence. There will be nothing then to hinder our communion ; there will be no days of darkness and uncertainty and doubt ; we shall know God in His own home, know Him as children know their father in the freedom and unchecked famil- iarity of our common domestic life.^
3. Heaven is home. — In presence of the shadow of death which was casting its thick gloom over the company of the disciples in ^ D. Fairweather, Bound in the SiHrit, 155.
72 THE HOUSE OF MANY MANSIONS
the upper room, Jesus pointed them to His Father's house of many mansions, where, after all the separations of earth, they would be gathered together with Him. So then heaven is only another name for home, that sacred, much-loved, familiar name which calls up thoughts we love to linger on, of all that is best and holiest in our life. There is nothitig we know so much about, where it is, how it looks, the familiar walls and rooms and windows, the faces of loved ones who move about in it, inseparably bound up with our tenderest associations and brightest hopes.
^ One of the first things of which we become conscious in this world is — home. It grows and clings around us with multiplied associations and deepening spell during all our growing years. To leave it is to young man or maiden sometimes like the pangs of death. To turn to it again in thought and desire from scenes of change and strife, or from the shores of a distant land, is like the daily bread of the heart, a part of religion itself. To come home again after absence — either in health and joy, laden with the fruits of prosperity, or wearied, and baffled, and sick, and dying — is the very instinct of the soul. Home ! the soldier thinks of it on the battle-field, and the sailor on the stormy sea, and the traveller amid the strange scenes of a foreign land, and many a stricken man in the fever- ward of the hospital, and many a lonely wanderer of the street, and many a criminal in the jail. Visions of its freshness and purity come floating around some men all their life long ; and follow them whithersoever they go. Some- times, when they have gone all the allotted way, and the end is coming fast, they go back again in memory, and with instinctive and mysterious love, to the home of childhood, and its tender sunshine and its sweet shade come flickering over the dying bed, and often amid these simple hallowed thoughts the dying comes. The strifes and the honours of manhood are all forgotten, and the thirsty home-sick soul must drink at the fountains of the youthful time, and see in that light of heaven that " lies about us in our infancy," and so fall asleep like a child, unknowingly, rocked by a loving hand, in the cradle of death. Thus full many a time the first home becomes the type and the very threshold of the highest and the best. The wearied soul in its dreams and yearnings is seeking the first home, groping through the shadows of death to find the door, and looking for father's or mother's face, when lo ! there is the glow and warmth of the heavenly "House," and chanting in the air the music of the new song, and the sweet light of the perfect love on every face, and for the newcomer the encircling of the everlasting arras ! Oh, sweet sleep of death that