The happiness of heaven depends on its neighborly activities, and not on its holiness or its prayers or its praises, although the former cannot exist without the latter. The joy of heaven is in use. No genuine or permanent felicity can flow from abstract states of the mind, establishing a merely personal relation with God for the sake of one's own salvation. States of mind entered into as if no other beings were in existence but the soul and its Maker, must have in them a large element of selfishness. This is the religion of the hermit in his cave, or of St. Simon on his pillar, not that of Wesley in his camp-meetings, and of Howard in the prisons. Christians of the former class are besieged by devils, while the latter are attended and comforted by angels.
No; the love of God is best exhibited in the love of the neighbor. Unless our love of God leads us to establish fraternal and helpful relations with all about us, it is a soul without a body; ideas without words to reveal them; a house without a foundation.
"He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small."
The angels have learned that lesson, so hard for
