promise is that together with them we shall ever be with the Lord. But the passage carries us one step higher still, viz: to _the uninterrupted enjoyment of the presence of our Lord himself_. There is first the resurrection, then the reunion, but the crowning promise of the whole is an everlasting fellowship with Christ himself. “So shall we ever be with the Lord.” Now this must ever be the longing desire of the child of God. Nothing created can ever satisfy the soul that is born again of the Spirit. Friends may cheer, and counsel, and animate, and sympathize, but they cannot really satisfy, and a union with Christ is the only thing that can give abiding peace. You, whose privilege it was to kneel beside the loved and departed one in prayer, and to unite in the outpouring of the soul before her God, you can well remember how ardently she thirsted for Him; not merely for his gifts but for himself, that we might be satisfied with his love and filled with his Spirit. It was this ardent desire that led to her early rising in winter and summer, in order that she might make use of the blessed privilege of communion with God. It was this that made the Lord’s day a delight to her soul, for she could rejoice in it as one altogether separated unto him. She thirsted to have her soul filled with the love of Christ, and when we reflect on such a character, what a power is there in the promise, “So shall we ever be with the Lord”! Then all thoughts will be absorbed in him, all hearts satisfied in him; and whether we be found among the living to be changed, or the dead to be raised, all will be one in him, to behold his glory, to hear his voice, to wonder at his love, and though faintly, yet sinlessly, to reflect his character. “Beloved now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know,” we do not merely think, or hope, but we _know_, “that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”