“Fear not! stand and see the great wonders of the Lord, which He will do.”[151] “I will seek that which was lost, and that which was driven away, I will bring again; and I will bind up that which was broken, and I will strengthen that which was weak.”[152] “I will give them life everlasting; and they shall not perish for ever, and no man shall pluck them out of My hand.”[153] [131] Ecclus. xxxiv. [132] Rom. xii. [133] Job xii. [134] Heb. iv. [135] 2 Cor. v. [136] John xiii. [137] Deut. xxxii. [138] Isa. lxvi. [139] Rom. viii. [140] Luke v. [141] 1 Peter ii. [142] Heb. iv. [143] 2 Par. xx. [144] Psa. liv. [145] Isa. vii. [146] Psa. lv. [147] Psa. xvii. [148] _Ibid._ [149] _Ibid._ xii. [150] John xvii. [151] Exod. xiv. [152] Ezech. xxxiv. [153] John x. XL. LIFE. As long as the heir is a child, he is under tutors and governors until the time appointed by the father.--_Galat._ iv. 1, 2. Life is a school--neither more nor less. _Not more._ Therefore we must not expect to find it satisfying. We must not look here for the freedom, the gladness, the warmth, the indefinable happiness of home. But surely the eternal Home is worth waiting for! “It hath not yet appeared what we shall be.”[154] “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love Him.”[155] Yet we may infer something of the grandeur and blessedness of the life to come from the study of our own souls, from the vastness of their capacity, their insatiable thirst for knowledge, the depth and tenderness of their affections. Capacity supposes complement. The aspirations God has given He will surely satisfy. And therefore all that the noblest, the most highly gifted, the most loving of our race have desired for their perfect happiness, will be given to them in a fulness of which they can form no conception--“good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over”.[156] The most far-reaching penetration of the secrets of nature and of grace; the perfect realisation and more a thousand times than realisation of home; the satisfaction of all the cravings of kindred and of friendship, to say nothing of the essential joy of which these are but the redundance--this is what awaits us hereafter. Not here, nor yet. We must not look now for anything but the faintest anticipation of what is in store for us--_we are at school_. How is it that this elementary truth has so little hold upon us? Life would be much less of a disappointment if we remembered its true character and purport, if we had more of the wisdom of the schoolboy who lives with his heart in the future, and for the rough discipline of the present is for ever promising himself the compensations of home.