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lopment are withdrawn. And though we believe that, when it shall again be clothed upon with its glorified body, it shall receive still larger accessions of might, and strength, and beauty, and glory, and knowledge, and joy: yet, even in its intermediate state, its faculties are higher, its powers greater, its graces more excellent, its vision more extended than now. Let us cherish this thought. It may be a comfort to many among us to cling to it, yet. And as there may be more means of our holding closest communion with the Blessed who are at "rest from their labours," than an unthinking or misbelieving world will acknowledge, let us not voluntarily deprive ourselves of one drop of comfort which may rise from a source so holy and so pure.
Much, at all events, we know of them: and can we imagine they know less of us? they, whose eyes are no more blinded by the veil of sense, who look upon God? They are yet in the Church as when we knew them here. They are still I say in the Church, only now of another order in it: but not less members than before of Him, "of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named."[1] And we cannot suppose that a condition, which brings them nearer to God, should involve any diminution, but rather an extension, of all faculties which respect vitality and bliss. Evil, indeed, we may well believe they are spared the knowledge of for many
- ↑ Ephes. iii. 15.
