went forward, and we are nearer to them now than

parallel. Let kings and queens prepare a royal room for the new-born
prince: "In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I
would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and
prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself;
that where I am, there ye may be also." Could we look into that place,
as it stands waiting for its occupant from earth, we should behold
sights which would instantly clothe even death with beauty, and make it
seem now, as it will seem then, a blessed thing to die. * * * * * To
miss of dying would no doubt be a calamity. Dying will be an experience
to the believer which will be fraught with inestimably good things; that
is, the act of dying, and not merely the being dead. It is no doubt as
necessary to the nature of the soul, to its psychology, its soul-life,
as the changes of the worm, chrysalis, and butterfly, are to the insect.
And thus, as in all other things, where sin abounded, grace much more
abounds, and even death, like a cross, is turned into a ministration of
infinite b