CHAPTER XIV.

NO MORE TEAR S.

ND God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away. And He that sat upon the throne said, Behold I make all things new."1

We must spend yet a little time over these sweet words about God's fair future, trying to gain some help from them for our present.

For things are so different now. So much of sorrow and pain, and death and weeping is on all sides of us, that it is very difficult to picture to ourselves a time when these things will abso

lutely not exist upon earth-upon that wondrous New Earth, which God has promised to make.

In considering the great future, we no longer need to draw a line of separation between Earth and Heaven, for Earth will be a part of Heaven. How could it be otherwise? Where Jesus is, where sin and sorrow are not, there Heaven must be. Now we stand bound down to Earth, separated from the rest of the Universe and from Heaven. Then we shall be free to go and come with angel-like swift flight, to and fro throughout the height and depth and breadth of our Father's wide dominions-His Universe and His Heaven.

So when we talk of Earth in that far future, we talk of Heaven too; and when we speak of Heaven, we include Earth.

Whether the renewed and glorified Earth, or the highest Heaven of heavens shall be our peculiar home matters little. HEAVEN will be our home, and the word Heaven embraces both. Our Father will be there; Christ Jesus will be there; the Holy Spirit will be there; angels and beloved friends of earth will be there. It will

be the perfection of existence, a life of holy joy, and of unclouded delight, for ever and ever.

"God shall wipe away all tears."

See the lovingness of the action. He has to send us much now that brings tears. He will wipe all tears away in that day. A tender mother sometimes must needs make her little child cry for the child's good; but when the need is over, the good accomplished, how she takes up the grieved child in her arms, and kisses and wipes away the tears!

"He will swallow up death in victory, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces." "12

"These are they which came out of great tribulation . . and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes."3

An old promise, given long ago, and renewed in the last chapter of the Bible. God is waiting patiently for that day, and He expects us to wait patiently too. Though His heart of

not act too soon.

Fatherly love is longing to set us free, He will Each burning drop that falls from the aching heart has its work to do. But soon the time shall come, and then"There shall be no more sorrow."

66 There shall be no more crying!"

O blessed words! Who can measure their worth? Is there ever a moment on earth when God, looking from His throne above, does not see the glitter of countless tear-drops, falling here, falling there, shed easily by the little child, shed with struggling sobs by the sorrowful woman, shed in reluctant anguish by the strong man? No, not countless, for God counts them all, and no earthly heart, though of the tenderest, can see those tears with the measureless pity which fills our Father's heart as He gazes-yet He lets them fall, He works no miracle to remove the cause. The strong toothed wheels of life grind onward, and tear after tear must sink into the dust

For a little while. Not for ever. Soon, very soon- -"God shall wipe away all tears."

I think there will be a great drying of tears a

the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in glory. None who truly love and serve Him now will need thenceforward to shed another tear. Nay, already in Paradise, as one fair spirit after another is landed on the other side, beyond the dark waters of the river, Jesus Himself wipes all tears away. No more tears, no more sorrow, no more weeping there.

So these words are true, first, of the saints in Paradise now; true, secondly, of all who are Christ's, and who shall reign with Him through the Millennium. But in the widest and most complete sense, they are true of the glorious New Earth, in the far future, when all tears, all sorrow, all crying, shall have utterly passed away for evermore.

No tears! No sorrow! No crying!

"Neither shall there be any more pain."

What a source of weeping removed! Does any living man, woman, or child not know what pain is? Men have philosophised about pain, have tried to prove that it is in itself a good and not an evil, that pain in short is not pain. But let them be seized in the grasp of bodily agony,