which they used to have, of comforting us who are struggling here
below. That notion springs altogether out of a superstitious fancy
that heaven is a great many millions of miles away from this earth--
which fancy, wherever men get it from, they certainly do not get it
from the Bible. Moreover it seems to me, that if the saints in
heaven cannot help men, then they cannot be happy in heaven. Cannot
be happy? Ay, must be miserable. For what greater misery for really
good men, than to see things going wrong, and not to be able to mend
them; to see poor creatures suffering, and not to be able to comfort
them? No, my friends, we will believe--what every one who loves a
beloved friend comes sooner or later to believe--that those whom we
have honoured and loved, though taken from our eyes, are near to our
spirits; that they still fight for us, under the banner of their
Master Christ, and still work for us, by virtue of his life of love,
which they live in him and by him for ever.

Pray to them, indeed, we need not, as if they would help us out of
any self-will of their own. There, I think, the Roman Catholics are
wrong. They pray to the saints as if the saints had wills of their
own, and fancies of their own, and were respecters of persons; and
could have favourites, and grant private favours to those who
especially admired and (I fear I must say it) flattered them. But
why should we do that? That is to lower God's saints in our own
eyes. For if we believe that they are made perfect, and like
perfectly the everlasting life, then we must believe that there is no
self-will in them: but that they do God's will, and not their own,
and go on God's errands, and not their own; that he, and not their
own liking, sends them whithersoever he wills; and that if we ask of
HIM--of God our Father himself, that is enough for us.