But let us not degrade this thought or make it selfish or unreal. One often hears the sneer or the doubt about the happiness of Heaven while any exist who have lost their Heaven. We do not know the answer now. But we shall know it then. And we must be absolutely certain that the answer lies not in the direction of selfish indifference. The higher any soul on earth grows in love the less can it escape unselfish sorrow for others. Must it not be so in that land too? Surely the Highest Himself must have more pain than any one else for the self-caused misery of men. If there be joy in His presence over one that repenteth must there not be pain over one that repenteth not? We can only say in our deep ignorance that until the day when all evil shall have vanished there are surely higher things in God's plan for His redeemed than selfish happiness and content. There is the blessedness that comes of sympathy with Him in the pain which is the underside of the Eternal Love. § 3 No sin in Heaven. No sorrow in Heaven. What else do we certainly know? _That the essence of the Heaven life will be love_. The giving of oneself for the service of others. The going out of oneself in sympathy with others. There at last will be realized St. Paul's glorious ideal. There it can be said of every man, He suffereth long and is kind; envieth not; vaunteth not himself; is not puffed up; seeketh not his own; behaveth not uncourteously. He is like the eternal God Himself, who beareth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things (1 Cor. xiii. 4-7). § 4 We may well believe _that there will be no dead level of attainment_, no dead level of perfection and joy. That would seem to us very uninteresting. If we may judge from God's dealings here and from the many texts of Scripture, there will be an infinite variety of attainment, of positions, of character. "In the Father's house there are many mansions." Our Lord assumes that we would expect that from our experience here. "If it were not so, I would have told you." I suppose there will be little ones there needing to be taught and weak ones needing to be helped; strong leaders sitting at His right hand in His Kingdom, and poor backward ones who never expected to get into it at all.