INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

AIDS to devout reflection abound in these days, and it is well that it is so. Our age is intensely

earthly." Not only is Mammon madly worshipped, as he ever has been, by the men of the world, but even by tens of thousands of God's professing people is the vain attempt making to serve both; and as it is when the earth intercepts the light of the sun, and causes the eclipse of the moon, so it is here-earth's shadow is too often seen upon the believer's soul. It cannot be otherwise, seeing that it is written, "Ye cannot serve God and mammon."

There must be some way by which we can be diligent in business," and at the same time "fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." If it were not quite a possible thing to "glorify God," whether "we eat, or drink, or whatsoever we do," our Divine Teacher would never have required

of us to do so; and one of the very foremost of these ways is a habit of devout meditation. This implies reading and praying; and certainly the searching of the Scriptures daily is, in the first instance, paramount. The only danger to be apprehended from the multiplication of such books as is now presented to the religious public is, that by them the regular reading of God's Word may be interrupted or set aside. In the case of the sincere Christian, however, this is not only not likely, but scarcely possible. The spiritual taste has been given to him, which must always dispose him to prefer the "bread from heaven;" in which case uninspired helps can only whet his appetite the more for the true manna, by which alone these are sweetened. We have, therefore, great freedom in recommending very highly this little guide-book to the other and the better world.

It is but little comparatively that we know of "heaven," and what we do know is rather negative than positive. The scriptural descriptions thereof are highly figurative, and have imparted a similar character to some of those treatises that have of late been published. We thankfully hail every help that is offered to diminish the power of the secular, and aug

ment that of the heavenly mind; but we greatly prefer the real to the merely fanciful, and hence the plan adopted in this little work. It contains simple but instructive extracts, upon the subject of the Paradise of God, taken from the best authors of every rank and sect. In the selection of these, more pains have been taken to discover such as directly lead to spiritual improvement and faith in God, than such as merely feed the love of what is ideal only, if not entirely fanciful.

We are certainly at liberty to form our ideas of "heaven" from the general hints of Scripture, and especially from the highly figurative descriptions of the Apostle John. These latter, however, are not to be literally understood. To what extent some of them may be found to be actually true no man knoweth; our safety is to use them as media by which great abstract truths of the glorified life are suggested. The "extracts" we have furnished are all chastened and moulded upon this principle. We can therefore the more confidently recommend them to the traveller Zionward, as little "wells of salvation" from which they may drink, and thus be refreshed in their wilderness-life. We know not of any better merely human help to main

tain that "heavenly-mindedness" which the strong carnality of this encompassing world so sadly menaces and would gladly dilute, if not destroy. There is much deeply to interest, as well as surely to edify, the religious pilgrimmind, in the rich experiences and opinions of illustrious saints now in glory. What they felt and what they taught upon the awful “eternities" must have been the teachings and foretastes given them by the Holy Spirit of God, and cannot fail to awaken in every spiritual mind similar ideas and desires. In this confidence, and with this pious and prayerful wish, we recommend these "Glimpses of Heaven" to such as sojourn in Mesech and dwell in the tents of Kedar.

J. M:

LONDON, CLAPHAM, 1867.