Page:Duty and Inclination. Volume 3.pdf/198

196 continued the Doctor, "prepared as he was for those beatitudes upon which he is about to enter. The superior excellence of our religion teaches, that when the mind, from its elevation in heavenly knowledge, has raised the affections and its thoughts above the external things of earth and matter, we contemplate death under quite a different aspect;—creating in us such sweet influences of joy, that our beloved brethren, under one common Father, have attained what we ought all to be in search of, the heavenly goal, that rather than repine at this their advancement, we sincerely felicitate them. Natural affections are agreeable to our natural state, and he who does not feel them is a monster; but truly Christian minds, submissive to the will of heaven, know how to keep the natural in subordination to celestial loves. Let the loss of our friends give encouragement, a fresh stimulus to overcome all that would oppose us in the life of goodness, when we shall be brought nearer to them, even in our spirits, perhaps, to hold pure intercourse with them; and when the last moment comes, how short will be the transition, how calm, how blissful—even like to Philimore's—to fall asleep in one world, to awake in another, those heavenly regions, where every pure desire or wish of the heart is instantaneously gratified, where those we have so much valued here will reappear to bless our sight! Such, dear Miss De Brooke, are the contemplations to which I would gladly direct your thoughts."