Chatsworth: Heaven & Earth

Chatsworth House in Derbyshire is one of England’s premier stately homes and is a fit place for a duke and duchess. The house in large and elegant, awash with marble, mahogany, velvet and gold paint. Although its Oxfordshire rival, Blenheim, might be a palace compared to Chatsworth’s being a mere ‘house’, it is palatial in all but name.

The gardens are rather spectacular, too. Giant rocks, waterfalls, woodlands, flowers, herbs, trees: you name it, they grow it. Here is a palace in a paradise, a veritable picture of the heaven to which the forgiven sinner is headed.

There are, of course, features of Chatsworth which are quite contrary to heaven. The entrance fee, for instance. Having paid nearly eight pounds to park, one stumps up another twenty-nine to get in, and is then asked if one would like to pay a little extra for the upkeep. I thought the first sums quite sufficient in that regard. Then there is the expensive food (seven pounds for a sandwich!) and the many wasps which expect to share it with you. The nearby Gents' had no soap and broken hand dryers. I still had a great day there, and it truly reminded me of my final destination, but there was also enough to remind me that I was still on fallen Planet Earth.

From time to time, we are afforded tokens of the future life of glory and bliss: in our families, in our churches, in our leisure. Yet each one comes with a little sting to prompt us not to get carried away or to think we are already home.

For I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. Philippians 1:23