At present, indeed, our glorious destiny is not apparent. By faith we see it, dim and distant, as through the shepherds' glass; in hope we wait for it with calm patience, or press toward it with strong desire; but what it is--"the glory that shall be revealed in us"--we know not, and cannot know, till mortality shall be swallowed up of life. It is spiritual; we are carnal. It is heavenly; we are earthly. It is infinite; we are finite. It is altogether divine: we are but human. Some of God's artists, as St. Paul and St. John, have given us gorgeous pictures of it, which we gaze at with shaded eyes; but while we study them, we cannot help feeling that they fall far short of the copied original. In our present state, what idea can we form of the condition of the soul, and the mode of its subsistence, when dislodged from the body? Nay, what idea can we form of the natural body developing into the spiritual, and all its rudimental powers unfolding in their perfection? Or, to speak more accurately and more scripturally, what idea can we form of the resurrection body, awaking from its long sleep in the dust, re-organized and re-invested--with new beauties, perhaps new organs, new senses, new faculties, all glorious in immortality? And the enfranchised intellect, who can guess the grandeur of its destiny--what new provinces of thought, new discoveries of truth, new revelations of science, new disclosures of the mysteries of nature and of God? And the spirit--the ransomed and purified spirit--who can imagine what perfection of love, what affluence of joy, what transports of worship and of song, what society and fellowship with the saints in light, it shall enjoy when it has entered its eternal rest? We know not how the statue looks till we see it unveiled; and the whole creation, as St. Paul writes to the Romans, is waiting for the unveiling of the sons of God. Now they are his hidden ones--hidden in the shadow of his wings, in the secret place of his tabernacle--their life hidden with Christ in God--their character and true glory hidden from the world--their ineffable destiny and reward hidden from themselves, till their dear Lord shall appear, and they also shall appear with him in glory. And well is it that our knowledge of the better world to come is so obscure and imperfect--necessarily obscure and imperfect, because God hath graciously revealed only what was essential to our salvation; for if he had revealed all that he might have revealed--if we could foresee and comprehend all that awaits us in the blessed everlasting future--we might have been so dazed and delighted with the splendors of the vision, as to be incapable of business, unfit for society, and better out of the world than in it. Wisely, therefore, God hath veiled the future, even from his saints. The oak is in the acorn, but we cannot divine its form, and must await its manifestation in the tree. Yet this we know, saith the apostle--and surely this ought to satisfy