It is peculiar that the end of the Bible should have been misconceived, even as the beginning, in its teaching concerning work. We have discussed the heresy that declares that work is a penalty of sin. There is another heresy which pictures heaven as a place of everlasting idleness. If we select certain of the descriptions of Revelation, it is easy to see how the error arose. Yet in each of the weird pictures of the eternal city there is one sentence at least that hints at heavenly service. For energetic souls no other conception will be satisfying. Surely inactivity is not the goal of a redeemed race. Shortly before his death Mark Twain published in a magazine a satire on the usual idea of heaven. Introduced in a dream to the city of our hope, he was told by an attending angel to take his seat on a cloud and to occupy himself by wearing a crown and holding a harp. Soon becoming weary of this do-nothing life, he came down to the golden streets. He was asked to keep for a time the crowns and harps of the passers-by, and he noted that the way was strewn with these rejected ornaments! Some good people may have been offended by the satire; and some whose life has been filled with weariness will insist that heaven must offer rest. So indeed it must. One suggestive passage says concerning the souls of those that were slain for the testimony of Christ that they should "rest yet for a little season." Those that have come out of great tribulation are given service as a reward of their tribulation. "Therefore are they before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple." In the later description the land of rest is seen as a land of work, and "his servants shall serve him." The race does not look back to a workless Eden; neither does it look forward to a workless heaven. Kipling puts it well for either here or there: We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it, Lie down for an eon or two, Till the Master of all good workmen Shall set us to work anew. The ideal of the Bible is service, and that ideal is not rejected when life comes to its crowning. One of the great hymns of the church gives to the worshipers in a sanctuary the Bible's Gospel of Work: Yet these are not the only walls Wherein thou mayst be sought; On homeliest work thy blessing falls In truth and patience wrought. Thine is the loom, the forge, the mart, The wealth of land and sea; The worlds of science and of art, Revealed and ruled by thee. Then let us prove our heavenly birth In all we do and know, And claim the kingdom of the earth For thee, and not thy foe. Work shall be prayer, if all be wrought As thou wouldst have it done; And prayer, by thee inspired and taught; Itself with work be one. The biblical ideal for earth sends men forth to their daily tasks, while the biblical ideal for heaven breaks its reserve sufficiently to show us a City wherein the saints at rest are likewise the saints at work.