Page:The Other Life.djvu/194

 work on the subject, and you will find that holiness, self-renunciation, faith, love, praise and prayer are considered as the elements and business of the heavenly life. This is a great mistake. These are only elements of the heavenly character which prepare one for the heavenly life. The heavenly life is one of constant spiritual activity, in which every intellectual faculty of the mind and every exalted affection of the heart is called into blissful operation.

The religious instinct of course exists in heaven in the highest degree; but it is not the whole of heavenly life as is commonly supposed. There are private and public devotions, and the spirit in its exercises of praise and prayer rises to an ecstasy of faith and love, of which we have here no conception. The public worship is conducted by singing, praying and expounding the Word of God, and the Church militant on earth receives its best inspiration from the Church triumphant in heaven. Religious offices perform there the same use they are designed to fill here; they bring us into closer communion with the Divine Love, and renew the soul with heavenly strength and peace, only to fit us more thoroughly for the consociations of life and the discharge of all our social and domestic duties.