Article October 16, 1915 Issue

From Our Exchanges

with contributions from William Elliot Griffis, Gaston W. Duncan, Frank J. Thompson

[Zion's Herald]

Of one thing, at any rate,—and it is the greatest thing of all,—we may be absolutely certain, namely, that heaven is wherever Christ is, and that to be with him in any world is "place" and promise enough for any believer. And then, too, heaven is a state of mind and heart. It is a disposition, a temperament, a kind of life, a sort of choice.... So the pious believer (we like that good old word "pious") may, even while living amid scenes of temptation and creature complaints, surround himself with a heavenly climate, a celestial frame of mind, which will keep him immune from the evils or the sorrows that afflict and disable his less prayerful or thoughtful associates.

We need to phrase the beatific experience less in quantitative and more in qualitative terms—less in material figures of speech and more in spiritual metaphors. Heaven is, after all, more what we are than where we are. Character is its own best climate, and when we are nearest Christ in spirit and aim we are most of all in glory. And if heaven be in us before we are in heaven, our whole lives will radiate hope and joy and love, and so prove most telling witnesses leading men home to God in Christ.

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