But again, faith is more blessed because it has greater privileges—because it reveals more clearly, brings nearer, than any sense could do. If you only hear a loved one, do you not desire to see him? If you see him, are you not unblessed unless you embrace him? And then, is there not an influence, a way of communicating, that surpasses this—a purer, a more spiritual influence, one which brings you together, and keeps you together, and makes you one—love, which surpasses, which is independent of, or only uses as accessories, the bodily senses? We are too apt, brethren, to talk of seeing as believing; to count sense above feeling; to exalt what belongs to the body, above what belongs to the mind or spirit. Doubtless, the error arises from the way in which we speak of faith giving way to sight in heaven, as though the eyes of the body only, and not the mind and spirit, were to behold CHRIST then; as though mental and spiritual perception were not better than bodily; as though there were no assurance that faith is an abiding gift, and that, therefore, while in heaven there will be much to gratify the eye of the body, there will still be much more which faith alone can realise. My brethren, the greatest eternal blessedness will be vouchsafed to faith, and the greatest blessedness of this state belongs to faith, because it is the exercise of man’s noblest and best, and most reliable faculties, far superior in excellence, far more certain in ascertaining the truth, than ears, or eyes, or hands.