Page:Spiritual Reflections for Every Day in the Year - Vol 3.pdf/95

 washed your feet, ye ought also to wash one another's feet."

The brethren who dwell together in unity, are all anxious for the eternal life and felicity of each other; and as their love is mutual, they employ themselves in the promotion of each other's regeneration, knowing that into the kingdom unto which they are all hastening, nothing that is unclean or defiled can possibly enter. A spirit of love animates every heart, and an affectionate girdle as of gold binds them together, and they feel how good and pleasant it is to dwell together in unity. It must needs be, that such a family or such a church, is happy. Its inward and spiritual progress nothing can impede, and its advancement to heaven cannot be stayed. Such a family, or such a church, extends the sphere of its influence all around, and is a means, in the order of Providence, for preparing the way for the kingdoms of this world to become the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. The advantages and benefits which belong to the brethren who dwell together in unity, are fully realized as we become connected with the only source of peace, the Lord our Saviour, the Prince of Peace. If our affections and thoughts are duly turned to, and kept open for the reception of, the sacred influences of love and wisdom from Him, we shall gradually assume His likeness, and every thing opposite thereto will be removed; and having, in our natural state, performed the uses devolving upon us, and being thus ready for the uses of a more glorious kingdom, we shall at length be brought into it, and there behold the perfection of happiness, the goodness and pleasantness of angelic unity.