If you love the Lord Jesus, you will look for his glorious appearing and long for his eternal fellowship. This was the one great gladdening hope of the apostles and all the early Christians. Before his departure, their dear Master had promised them that he would come again, and receive them unto himself; and with perfect faith in his word, they joyfully waited and watched for his return in the clouds of heaven. And still the expectant bride is on the outlook for her absent Lord; and often we hear her from behind the lattice of her chamber-window calling--"Make haste, my Beloved! and be thou like the young hart upon the mountains of spices!" What Christian soul does not respond to the sweet words of Milton? "Come forth out of thy royal chambers, O Prince of all the kings of the earth; put on the visible robes of thy imperial majesty; take up that unlimited sceptre which thy Almighty Father hath bequeathed thee; for now the voice of thy bride calls thee, and all things sigh to be renewed!" What saint of Jesus does not thrill to the eloquent strain of Edward Irving? "Blessed consummation of this weary and sorrowful world! I give it welcome; I hail its approach with joy; I wait its coming more than they that watch for the morning! O my Lord, come away! hasten, with all thy congregated ones! My soul desireth to see the King in his beauty, and the beautiful ones he shall bring along with him!" Verily, "herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as he is so are we in this world." But were he this very day revealed from heaven in flaming fire, should we take lute and timbrel and go forth to welcome him to his ransomed world, or fly to the rocks and mountains to hide from his presence and escape from his wrath? In a great earthquake which shook a vast city, when the people said it was the day of judgment and sought where they might take refuge from their Judge, a certain poor man began to cry out--"Oh! is it so? is it so? Then whither shall I go to meet my Lord? on what mountain shall I stand to see my Saviour?" Oh! to greet the Redeemer in his glory--who that loves him does not leap for joy at the expectation? "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God;" and the saints in their redeemed bodies "shall be caught up in the clouds to meet him in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord." Again the happy bride looks forth and cries--"The voice of my Beloved! behold, he cometh, leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills!" And you, my dear brethren, if you truly love your Saviour, so far from dreading him as your judge, will hail him as your friend; when the sound of his chariot-wheels, heard from pole to pole, shall gladden the graves of his beloved; and the voice of rejoicing and praise, rising from the tabernacles of the righteous, shall roll its thunder-chant through all the realms of joy!