They shall come to Zion.' It is one great distinctive characteristic and blessedness of the Christian conception of the future that it takes away from it all the chilling sense of strangeness, arising from ignorance and lack of experience, and invests it with the attraction of being the mother-city of us all. So the pilgrims are not travelling a dreary road into the common darkness, but are like colonists who visit England for the first time, and are full of happy anticipations of going home,' though they have never seen its shores.
That conception of the future perfect state as a city' includes the ideas of happy social life, of a settled polity, of stability and security. The travellers who were often solitary on the march will all be together there. The nomads, who had to leave their camping-place each morning and let the fire that cheered them in the night die down into a little ring of grey ashes, will go no more out,' but yet make endless progress within the gates. The defenceless travellers, who were fain to make the best larger' they could, and keep vigilant watch for human and bestial enemies crouching beyond the ring of light from the camp-fires, are safe at last, and they that swallowed them up shall be far away.
Contrast the future outlook of the noblest minds in heathenism with the calm certainty which the gospel has put within the reach of the simplest!
Blessed are your eyes, for they see.'
