'Wherefore,' he says, 'putting away lying, speak every man truth with
his neighbour: for we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and
sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: neither give
place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more: but rather
let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that
he may have to give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt
communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to
the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.
And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the
day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and
clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:
and be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another,
even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

Do that, he says, and you will be followers of God, as dear children;
and thus will you surely save your souls alive. For they will be
inspired by the Spirit of God, the spirit of goodness, who is the
Lord and Giver of life; wherefore they cannot decay nor die, but must
live and grow, develop and improve perpetually, becoming better and
wiser,--and therefore more useful to their fellow-creatures, more
blessed in themselves, and more pleasing to God their Father, through
all eternity. And thus you will surely go to heaven. For heaven
will begin on earth, and last on after this earth, and all that binds
you to this earth, has vanished in the grave.

Heaven will begin on earth, I say. When St. Paul told these very
Ephesians to whom my text was addressed, that God had made them sit,
even then, in heavenly places with Christ Jesus, he did not mean in
any wise--what they would have known was not true--that their bodies
had been miraculously lifted up above the earth, above the clouds, or