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“Sweet Hope! kind cheat! fair fallacy! by thee 
We are not where or what we long to be; 
But what and where we would be: thus art thou 
Our absent present, and our future now.” 
— Crashaw. 
And so, in spite of the hardest trials, the Christian never ceases to 
hope, because his hope comes from God. It is thus, that its principal 
promises are realized only in Heaven. 
“Dear Hope! earth’s dowry and Heaven’s debt, 
The entity of things that are not yet: 
Subtlest, but surest being.” 
— Crashaw. 
It is therefore to Heaven that we should turn our eyes; it is there 
that we should, beforehand, contemplate our crown , and exult and leap for 
sheer joy and happiness at the very thought of the rest and bliss which 
(there await us; for, in Heaven the sight of God alone will console us for 
a whole life of adversity. 
“In God is our trust.” 
St. Paul had caught a glimpse of that spectacle, when he cried out: 
“Our present tribulation, which is but momentary and light, worketh for 
us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory.”—2 Cor., iv, 17. 
“And as, in sparkling majesty, a star 
Gilds the bright summit of some gloomy cloud,— 
Brightening the half-veiled face of heaven afar: 
So, when dark thoughts my boding spirit shroud, 
Sweet Hope! celestial influence round me shed, 
Waving thy silver pinions o’er my head.” 
— Keats. 
