The air of a place is more important to us than the scenery. If we get both, the refined and tasteful sensibilities will be gratified, and our condition will be the more perfect; but if we must part with either, and do with only one of these, the air of the place we dwell in will be far more important to our good and comfort than the scenery. So not only with our converse with places, but with persons also. Their spirit will be of greater importance to us than their attainments. As brethren dwelling together we find this continually. There is more real refreshment from the gracious, humble, and fervent spirit of another, than from any communications of intelligent ones who are not adorned and filled with that mind and spirit.
In like manner, heaven will have both its atmosphere and its scenery. The place will be instinct and alive with a moral element, as well as furnished with glories; and the former (I speak as a man) will be of greater amount in the aggregate and history of our joy than the latter. There will be a heaven for every sense and faculty—a heaven for the eye, for the ear, and for the heart, through all its pulses—a heaven of light for the intelligent powers, and a heaven for the ardor of love for the affections. I have found it well to ponder this a little.—to gather some notices here and there in the Scriptures of this precious secret—to put, not before the eye, the glories of the place (a very blessed thing at times), but before the heart its moral characteristics. Certain passages have just occurred to me, and I will follow them briefly.
Exod. 18
This meeting between Jethro and Moses and their several companies at the mount of God was, as we know, a type of the correspondence between the heavenly and earthly families in the days of the kingdom. But what are the moral features impressed upon it? Most willing subjection on the part of Moses, the most hearty sympathy in the joy of Israel on the part of Jethro with, at the same time, an assumption of the place of dignity without the least reserve, but in full, easy and conscious title. And how sweet a social scene must be, animated by such principles and affections as these!
2 Chron. 9
The visit of the Queen of the South to King Solomon is properly known to be a type of the intercourse of the royal Jerusalem and the tributary nations in the days of the kingdom. But how unselfish, and how ungrudging, how generous and freehearted was it! How unlike a state of society where we are hateful and hating one another! Solomon answers all her questions, and even exceeds her desires; and she takes the place of a debtor and an inferior, with the praises on her lips of the God of Israel who had given His people such a sovereign; and she goes back to
spread his fame, instead of to envy it.
Isa. 40
This chapter is a prophecy of the state of the millennial earth. But it exhibits the fine moral features of that day. The nations delight to do honor to Zion; their treasures are sent up to minister
to her joy and her glory, with all the readiness and the glow of a freewill offering; they fly to Zion with their choicest blessings, as doves fly to their windows. How precious will it be to breathe an atmosphere of such glowing, unselfish love, after the foul and noxious air of this present state
of social life, where principles of envy and malice give such strong characters to all that is around us!
Matt. 17
The holy hill was expressive of the earthly and heavenly families in the days of the glory. And what says Peter, breathing the air of the place? "It is good for us to be here:... let us make here three tabernacles; one for Thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias." He was happy, divinely happy; and that cured his heart of selfishness. He was willing to labor and let others even enter into his labors.
Rev. 21 and 22
And so in the holy city, the Jerusalem of the heavens. What is the commerce there between the families of God? All is most blessed. The kings bring their glory and honor up to the light of the city. As it were, they delight to do it reverence—to hold it in honor. They do not lightly approach it, but bring their glory only up to it. And the city—she dispenses her treasures with an unsparing hand. The leaves of her tree, the shining of her glory, the streams of her river are at the full and welcome disposal of the nations. What an atmosphere all these scriptures tell us the atmosphere of heaven and of the millennium will be! If we are wearied with our own selfish hearts, and with the spirit that animates the scene around us every day, we may well long for such a change of air as these scriptures promise us. For what refreshment will it be—the repose of the heart in regions and dwellings of love! If the glories of the place be judged desirable and attractive, what, I ask, will this element, this sweet atmosphere of it be? All the low and miserable workings of selfish nature will be gone in heaven. It is not that they will be triumphed over, but they will be gone; for "the mind of Christ" will be there to perfection.
My heart is bounding onward, Home to the land I love; Its distant vales and fountains My wistful passions move. Fain would my fainting spirit Its living freshness breathe, And wearied steps find rest in
Its hallowed shades beneath. No soil of nature's evil, No touch of man's rude hand, Shall e'er disturb around us That bright and happy land. The charms that woo the senses Shall be as pure as fair; For all, while stealing o'er us, Shall tell of Jesus there. What light! when all its beaming Shall own Him as its sun!
What music! when its breathing Shall bear His name along! No change, no pause, its pleasures Shall ever seek to know; The draft that lulls our thirsting, But wakes our thirst anew.