Chapter 357—Heaven’s School
And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the
peace of thy children.
Isaiah 54:13
.
Heaven is a school; its field of study, the universe; its teacher, the Infinite
One. A branch of this school was established in Eden; and the plan of
redemption accomplished, education will again be taken up in the Eden
school....
Between the school established in Eden at the beginning and the school
of the hereafter there lies the whole compass of this world’s history—the
history of human transgression and suffering, of divine sacrifice, and of
victory over death and sin. Not all the conditions of the first school of Eden
will be found in the school of the future life. No tree of knowledge of good
and evil will afford opportunity for temptation. No tempter is there, no
possibility of wrong. Every character has withstood the testing of evil, and
none are longer susceptible to its power....
There, when the veil that darkens our vision shall be removed, and our
eyes shall behold that world of beauty of which we now catch glimpses
through the microscope; when we look on the glories of the heavens, now
scanned afar through the telescope; when, the blight of sin removed, the
whole earth shall appear in “the beauty of the Lord our God” (
Psalm 90:17
),
what a field will be open to our study! There the student of science may
read the records of creation and discern no reminders of the law of evil. He
may listen to the music of nature’s voices, and detect no note of wailing or
undertone of sorrow. In all created things he may trace one handwriting—in
the vast universe behold “God’s name writ large,” and not in earth or sea or
sky one sign of ill remaining.
Those who have made the most of their privileges to reach the highest
attainments here, will take these valuable acquisitions with them into the
future life. They have sought and obtained that which is imperishable. The
capability to appreciate the glories that “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,”
will be proportionate to the attainments reached in the cultivation of the
faculties in this life.
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