THE AMARANTH. 



215 



stagnant in the everlasting sameness. And transferring 

 the conception to the future world we should in such a 

 case sympathize with the little girl who asked her father, 

 " If she were so good that she had to go to heaven, 

 whether after a hundred years God would not let her die 

 out ! " Change, we must remember, is not in itself an 

 element of misery. All changes are not necessarily sad. 

 There are changes caused by sin changes on the down- 

 ward scale death, decay of feeling, retrogression, cor- 

 ruptions and all unrests associated with sin ; and these 

 changes will doubtless be altogether unknown in 

 heaven. But there are other changes associated with 

 holiness and life and progress changes on the upward 

 scale, from one degree of beauty and perfection and en- 

 joyment to another; and we cannot imagine a heaven 

 suitable for beings like us without these. True to 

 human nature, the Bible in its revelations of the future 

 world brings before us pictures of such changes. It 

 speaks to us indeed of the everlasting materials of the 

 eternal city, but it shows us, in the midst of its streets 

 and on either side of the river, the tree of life bearing 

 twelve manner of fruits, to which every month brings the 

 freshness of spring and the ripeness and mellowness of 

 autumn, which shows in constant succession opening 

 and fading blossoms and forming and falling fruits. 

 And the river in whose waters the healing foliage and 

 the satisfying fruit are mirrored, is no dull Lethe 

 stagnant and motionless, for ever the same, but a river 

 of life, incessantly changing and being renewed the 

 very fulness of all life in which the past, present, and 



