These souls waiting for Heaven are then, one and all, holy. No spot of sin, no attachment to sin, no imperfection dwells within them. They love God with all the force of their regenerate nature, and God loves them with the fondest affection. They are to be His friends and companions for ever. The throne in Heaven is ready for each of them, and nothing can deprive them of it. The Saints and Angels are longing for their company, yet they cannot enter Heaven. How strange it seems! What holds them back in their spotless purity from the bosom of their God?

They, moreover, long after God with the most intense longing; they have no attachment to any sort of sin; they do not cling to any creature with a love which interferes with their love of God. Why is not the door of Heaven open to them? Why are they kept waiting so long? They have done all they can. They have united themselves to Him by a perfect act of sorrow and love. Yet God, in His hatred of their past sins, keeps them in a place of banishment. How God must hate sin!

All their sufferings will not add anything to their future glory. However patient they may be, they will gain nothing by their willing endurance. Why then does not God, the All-merciful God, take them at once to Heaven? We can understand that those who hate God are necessarily separated from Him, but why those who love Him, if they gain nothing by it? How God must hate sin, if He thus punishes it in the case of those who have nothing in them save the purity of perfect love! Seek to realize more the utter hatefulness of sin.