a bride adorned for her husband, shall put aside her veil and look up
into the face of her Lord the King, and say: "The half--the half was
not told me."

Well, there is coming a greater surprise to every Christian--a greater
surprise than anything I have depicted. Heaven is an old story.
Everybody talks about it. There is hardly a hymn in the hymn-book that
does not refer to it. Children read about it in their Sabbath-school
book. Aged men put on their spectacles to study it. We say it is a
harbor from the storm. We call it our home. We say it is the house of
many mansions. We weave together all sweet, beautiful, delicate,
exhilarant words; we weave them into letters, and then we spell it out
in rose and lily and amaranth. And yet that place is going to be a
surprise to the most intelligent Christian. Like the Queen of Sheba,
the report has come to us from the far country, and many of us have
started. It is a desert march, but we urge on the camels. What though
our feet be blistered with the way? We are hastening to the palace. We
take all our loves and hopes and Christian ambitions, as frankincense
and myrrh and cassia, to the great King. We must not rest. We must not
halt. The night is coming on, and it is not safe out here in the
desert. Urge on the camels. I see the domes against the sky, and the
houses of Lebanon, and the temples and the gardens. See the fountains
dance in the sun, and the gates flash as they open to let in the poor
pilgrims.

Send the word up to the palace that we are coming, and that we are
weary of the march of the desert. The King will come out and say:
"Welcome to the palace; bathe in these waters, recline on these banks.
Take this cinnamon and frankincense and myrrh and put it upon a censer
and swing it before the altar." And yet, my friends, when heaven