Page:The Other Life.djvu/196

 the carnal mind to comprehend, that happiness consists in loving and obeying God so supremely, that our selfhood is put in the last and lowest place, and our life is expended upon and for others.

This is to be like God. He did not create the world for the display of His own glory, as some of the old catechisms have it, but to make a universe of wise and happy creatures, and to flood all the spheres of creation with light and peace and beauty and eternal joy. To receive from Him and to give to others is the secret of heavenly happiness. The more the angel gives, the more he receives. The poorest is the richest. He that loses his life, finds it. The greatest is the servant of all. The wisest is the most childlike. Oh happy, glorious reversal of the aims, dispositions and feelings of our earthly and unregenerate state!

The occupations upon which the angelic energies are expended are domestic, social and civil. As the heavenly character begins with the heart, so the heavenly world begins with the home. Every society in heaven is a cluster of homes. Every house or home is a little paradise, in which an Adam and an Eve (for marriage is the proper state of the angels), conversing daily with Jehovah, en-