we forget our own past histories, and therefore lose the sense of our
personal identity, and be ignorant of all we have been and done as
sinners, and of all we have received and done as redeemed men? or,
knowing all this, shall we be prevented from communicating our
histories to others? Shall beloved friends be there whom we have known
and loved in Christ here; with whom we have held holy communion; with
whom we have laboured and prayed for the advancement of Christ's
kingdom; and with whom we have eagerly watched for His second
coming,--and shall we be unable throughout eternity, either to
discover their existence or associate with them in the New Jerusalem?
Are the apostles now ignorant of each other? Did Moses and Elias
issue out of a darkness which mutually concealed them in heaven, and
recognising one another for the first time amidst the light on Tabor's
hill, did they then return into darkness again? Oh, what is there in
the whole Word of God,--what argument derived from, our experience of
the blessings of Christian fellowship,--what in the character of God
or His dealings with man,--what in His promises of things to come laid
up for those who love Him, that could have suggested such strange,
unworthy, false, and dreary thoughts of the union, or rather disunion,
of friends in their Father's home! Tell me not that special affection
to Christian brethren, from whatever causes it may arise, is
inconsistent with unfeigned love to all, and with absorbing love to
Jesus. It is not so here, and never can be so from the nature of holy
love, and was not so in Christ's own case when He the Perfect One
lived amongst us. With supreme love to God, "He loved His church
and gave Himself for it;" with love to His church He yet loved the
disciples as "His own;" while again within this circle one of these
was specially _the_ loved one; and beyond it "He loved Martha and Mary
and Lazarus!" Tell me not that it is enough to know that our friends
are in glory. I know this now in regard to some of them, as surely as