After the fever of life—after wearinesses, sicknesses, fightings and despondings, languor and fretfulness, struggling and failing, struggling and succeeding—after all the changes and chances of this troubled and unhealthy state, at length comes death—at length the white throne of God—at length the beatific vision.
No aching hearts are there,
No tear-dimmed eye, no form by sickness wasted,
No cheek grown pale through penury or care,
No spirits crushed beneath the woes they bear,
No sighs for bliss untasted.
And then, the quiet of the green, inland valleys of our Father's land, where no tempest comes any more, nor the loud winds are ever heard, nor the salt sea is ever seen; but perpetual calm and blessedness; all mystery gone, and all rebellion hushed and silenced, and all unrest at an end forever! "No more sea;" but, instead of that wild and yeasty chaos of turbulent waters, there shall be the river that makes glad the city of God, the river of water of life, that proceeds "out of the throne of God and of the Lamb."
An everlasting tranquillity is, in my imagination, the highest possible felicity, because I know of no felicity on earth higher than that which a peaceful mind and contented heart afford.
There fragrant flowers immortal bloom,
And joys supreme are given;
There rays Divine disperse the gloom;
Beyond the confines of the tomb
Appears the dawn of heaven.
