Life in Heaven. By the author of Heaven our Home."
(Edin- burgh: Nimmo. London Simpkin and Marshall.)—The anther of this volume is of opinion that heaven is not sufficiently talked about in this world. It is, he says, "too much out of sight, and too much out of mind ; and thus, alas ! even among Christians, it is too seldom the sub- ject of conversation in their social circles." He thinks it advisable to remedy this omission, as far as in him lies, by describing heaven to us with the utmost minuteness of detail. The picture which he presents us with is a very singular one ; but we can only notice one or two points in it. Our author is quite certain that people, when they die, go at once either to hell or to heaven ; and he devotes a chapter to the sources through which the inmates of heaven obtain knowledge of their friends on earth. That they do possess such knowledge he proves by the conclusive statement that the astronomer sees a star through a telescope, and that the "mother looks down from the upper story of the house, and thus learns much about the conduct of her children playing in the court below." The various sources are-1. Direct personal in- spection from above. 2. Direct oral communication from the Trinity. 3. Communications from our guardian angels, who, our author is con- vinced, repeatedly traverse the space between earth and heaven. 4. Occasional visits to the earth. 5. The death and consequent arrival in heaven of common friends. Our author winds up his astounding pro- duction with a number of imaginary conversations supposed to take place in heaven between the following sets of interlocutors :—Isaiah and St. John; Abraham, Lazarus, and Job ; Moses and Elias ; Aaron, John the Baptist, and St. Peter ; Btumabas and Silas ; Ambrose and Booth ; Newton, Locke, and Bacon; and finally, Milton, Cowper, and Pollok. The author of "The Course of Time" reminds his fellow poets, in the course of conversation, that he left behind him that groat work, and wonders whether any one "up here" will over write a corresponding treatise on eternity. Unless being "up here" be an indispensable condition, the author of "Life in Heaven" is, we should think, just the man to think himself qualified to perform this task.
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