Some of you may remember the joy with which, after a sea voyage, you arrived at home. The voyage had been very long and wearisome. You had suffered, perhaps had been in danger. At last you heard the sailors cry "Land;" and after a while, your less practised eye began to discern the blue hills of your native country. Oh, how that sight revived you! How your sufferings and dangers were all forgotten in the thought of the welcome that awaited you at home! {253} Well, life is a voyage on the ocean of time; often a tempestuous, always a dangerous voyage; and in order to animate our courage, to cheer and console us, God has allowed us from time to time to catch a glimpse by faith of our distant home of heaven. Let us lift up our thoughts now to that happy land, the land that is very far off, the land that is wide and quiet; the celestial paradise, the home of the blessed, the city of God. I know that we cannot gain any sufficient idea of it. I know that eye hath not seen its beauty, ear hath not heard the story of it, neither hath the heart of man conceived its image; but we must do as men do with some costly jewel: turn it first on one side, then on another, to catch its brilliancy; and if at the last we fall down, blinded and dazzled by the splendors which meet us, we shall in this way at least conceive something of the greatness of those things which God has provided for those who love Him. The Holy Scripture represents the pleasures of heaven in three different lights: first, as Rest; second, as Joy; third, as Glory. Let us, then, meditate upon them for a while, under each one of these three aspects.