open up in all our bosoms! All the pilgrims, good and bad--they, or the
seed and possibility of them all, are all in your heart and in mine. All
the cities, all the roads that lead from one city to another, with all
the paths and all the by-paths,--all the adventures, experiences,
endurances, conflicts, overthrows, victories,--all are within us and
never are to be seen anywhere else. Heaven and hell, God and the devil,
life and death, salvation and damnation, time and eternity, all are
within us. "There is no Mount Zion in all this world," bellowed out this
blinded fool. "No; I know that quite well," quickly responded Christian;
"but there is in the world to come." He would have said the whole truth,
and he would have been entirely right, had he taken time to add, "and in
the world within." "And more," he should have said to Atheist, "much
more in the world within than in any possible world to come." The
Celestial City, every Sabbath-school child begins gradually to
understand, is not up among the stars; till, as he grows older, he takes
in the whole of the New Testament truth that the kingdom of heaven is
wholly within him. You all understand, my brethren, that were we swept
in a moment up to the furthest star, by all that infinite flight we would
not be one hair's-breadth nearer the heavenly city. That is not the
right direction to that city. The city whose builder and maker is God
lies in quite a different direction from that altogether; not by
ascending up beyond sun and moon and stars to all eternity would we ever
get one hand's-breadth nearer God. But if you deny yourself sleep to-
night till you have read His book and bowed your knees in His closet; if,
for His sake, you deny yourself to-morrow when you are eating and
drinking; as often as you say, "Not my will, but Thine be done"; as often
as you humble yourself when others exalt themselves; as often as you
refuse praise and despise blame for His sake; as often as you forgive
before God your enemy, and rejoice with your friend,--Behold! the kingdom
of heaven, with its King and all His shining court of angels and saints