376 THE OLIVE LEAF. CHAP. 



life to come. Love builds the heavenly as well as the 

 earthly home. Love creates its own immortality ; for 

 love is love for evermore. He who made the union 

 of hearts here more powerful than the attraction of 

 star to star, more beautiful than the blossoming of 

 flower to flower, more precious than the highest flights 

 and attainments of intellect, must " grant the reunion, 

 having made the union so sweet." He who has 

 wakened in us such great capacities, who has un- 

 folded to us such countless wonders of creation for 

 our instruction and delight, and lighted up the uni- 

 verse with a glory and a beauty so divine, would .not 

 have done so if death were our extinction and the 

 dust our end. He has sent His Son out of His 

 own bosom, to say to the multitudes in all the Chris- 

 tian ages who have devoted themselves to His work 

 and sacrificed their lives for His sake, with the deep 

 conviction in their souls that the sufferings of this 

 life were not worthy to be compared with the glory 

 that should be revealed in them; to the myriads 

 who have laid their beloved dead to rest in the sure 

 and certain hope of a happy reunion "If it were 

 not so, I would have told you." He has not told 

 us ; and therefore all concerning the future life upon 

 which He has caused our hearts to hope is true. 



It is not beauty for ashes that we want; but beauty 

 from ashes. The inmost longing of every human heart 

 is not for an unknown and untried future happiness, 

 but for a restoration, beautified and unalloyed, of what 

 has already been. We do not care for substitutes 



