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 Who cannot see that in all such passages it is a spiritual relationship to which our Lord refers?—a relationship resulting from the new spiritual birth, and grounded in spiritual faith and love? Such is the only kind of relationship (and this should be conclusive of the whole question) which He ever recognizes as belonging to his kingdom in the heavens. And what other relationship should we expect—what other, indeed, can there be—in a kingdom that is purely spiritual?

N view of what has been said in the foregoing chapter, questions like the following will naturally arise: Shall we not, then, meet our earthly friends in the spiritual world? Shall we not recognize them and be recognized by them in return? Will not the mother meet her darling child, and know and love it as her own? Will not husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, meet there in tender and loving embrace, and remember and renew the relation they sustained in the natural world? Is not the desire for such reunions in the Hereafter, among the implanted instincts of our nature? And in seasons of sore bereavement do we not derive support and solace from the belief that this natural and deep desire of our hearts will be granted?

Most assuredly. And there is no reason to doubt