Page:The Faith as Unfolded by Many Prophets.djvu/129

 speaks so fully of paradise, leaving liberty to the wise to hope as they will?

Eber replied, In the Gospel this end is gained without degrading the promises of God. It is sufficient to promise, on the sure word of God, that the bliss of the righteous shall be great: — then they who endeavor to become righteous will not only hope for the highest bliss they can conceive, but will conceive of a higher and a higher perpetually. Thy child now desires to taste of the rivers of honey in paradise, and to gather up the precious stones which shall there be scattered sparkling in the sunshine. When he is a youth, his imagination will prepare for him an abode where the beautiful daughters of paradise may dwell with him. When he becomes a man, he will rather hope for the delights of friendship than of love, and will expect such improvement in knowledge as his maturer mind desires. When he shall be yet older, he will above all things delight, as thou, in the thought of beholding the face of God morning and evening ; and it may even be that his father and himself may yet desire (not a higher bliss, for a higher cannot be conceived, but) other pure delights connected with this. Thus it may be with him and thee