light million to whom his name was as the name of an angel of God? There will be wailing in places which no minister shall be able to reach. When, in hovel and in cot, in wood and in wilderness, in the field throughout the South, the dusky children, who looked upon him as that Moses whom God sent before them to lead them out of the land of bondage, learn that he has fallen, who shall comfort them? O, thou Shepherd of Israel, that didst comfort thy people of old, to thy care we commit the helpless, the long-wronged, and grieved.

And now the martyr is moving in triumphal march, mightier than when alive. The nation rises up at every stage of his coming. Cities and states are his pall-bearers, and the cannon beats the hours with solemn progression. Dead, dead, DEAD, he yet speaketh! Is Washington dead? Is Hampden dead? Is David dead? Is any man that ever was fit to live dead? Disenthralled of flesh, and risen in the unobstructed sphere where passion never comes, he begins his illimitable work. His life now is grafted upon the infinite, and will be fruitful as no earthly life can be. Pass on, thou that hast overcome! Your sorrows, oh people, are his peace! Your bells, and bands, and muffled drums, sound triumph in his ear. Wail and weep here; God makes it echo joy and triumph there. Pass on!/

Four years ago, oh, Illinois, we took from your midst. an untried man, and from among the people. We return him to you a mighty conqueror. Not thine any more, but the nation's; not ours, but the world's. Give him place, oh, ye prairies! In the midst of this great continent his dust shall rest, a sacred treasure to myriads who

shall pilgrim to that shrine to kindle anew their zeal and patriotism. Ye winds that move over the mighty places of the West, chant his requiem! Ye people, behold a martyr whose blood, as so many articulate words, pleads for fidelity, for law, for liberty!

SERMON III.

REV. HENRY W. BELLOWS, D. D.

"Sorrow hath filled your heart. Nevertheless, I will tell you the truth. It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart I will send him unto you.”—ST. JOHN xvi. 6, 7.

So Jesus, in view of his own approaching death, comforted his disciples! He was to leave them, robbed by violence of their accustomed leader; he whom they had believed should redeem Israel, snatched wickedly and ignominiously from their side; all their hopes of prosperity and power in this world utterly destroyed. He was to leave them a dismayed and broken-hearted band, terror-stricken and scattered abroad, the enemies of their beloved Lord triumphant over him; his words and teachings as yet involved in obscurity and mystery; their souls ungrown in his likeness; the nature of their Master's errand in this world not yet understood-nay, misunderstood almost as sadly by his disciples as by the Jews who murdered him. Knowing, as our Saviour did, just how they were to be affected by his death, how utterly appalled and bewildered, he still tells them, "It is expedient for you that I go away, for if I go not away the Comforter (who should abide with them forever) will not come unto you; but if I depart I will send him unto you."

We understand now, looking back nineteen centuries, how truly Jesus spake. We see that without that death there could not have been that resurrection from the dead; that Jesus Christ was revealed to his disciples as a spiritual prince and deliverer, as Lord over the grave and king of saints immortal, in the defeat of all ambitions having their seat in this world; that he died to prove that death was not the end of being, but the real beginning of a true life; rose again to show that if it was "appointed unto all men once to die," it was not because fate and matter were stronger than spirit, or because death was inevitable, but simply because thus man broke out of fleshly garments into a higher mode of existence. We see now that he finally left his disciples, and ascended into heaven, to show them that absence in the flesh is often only a greater nearness of the spirit that his power to enlighten, guide, animate, and bless them-yes, to comfort and cheer them—was greater as an unseen Saviour, sitting at the right hand of God, than as a present incarnate Master, in whose bosom John could lie, and into whose side and into the prints of the nails Thomas could thrust his doubting fingers. And what he promised he fully performed! The Crucifixion which darkened the heavens with its gloom, gave way to the Resurrection, which not only broke Christ's own tomb and the tombs of many saints, but slew the Angel of Death himself, leaving him only the mock dignity of a name without reality, which let into the Apostles' minds, and through them into the world, their first. conception of the utter spirituality of Christ's kingdom; converted them from Jews into Christians; indeed, began the new era, and from ordinary fishermen created those glori

ous, sublime Apostles, whose teachings, character, deeds, and sufferings built up the Church on the chief cornerstone, and established our holy religion in the world.

And it was not only expedient for Jesus Christ to die, that he might rise again clothed with his conquest over the grave, his victory over the doubts and fears of his disciples, and the bold predictions and short triumph of his murderers—but expedient for him, in his ascension, to go away utterly from all bodily presence with his disciples and followers, drawing their thoughts and affections after him into the unseen world. Thus alone could Jesus keep the minds and hearts of his disciples wide open and stretched to the full compass of his spiritual religion— keep them from closing in again with their narrow earthly horizon-keep them from falling back into schemes of worldly hope-from substituting fondness for and devotion to his visible person, for that elevated, spiritual consecration to his spirit and his commandments, on which their future high and holy influence depended. Jesus went away, that the Christ might return to be the anointing, and illumination, and Comforter of his disciples. His nearest friends never knew him till he had wholly gone away. They never loved him till he was beyond their embraces. John, lying in his bosom, was not as near his heart as thousands of his humblest disciples have been, who have had Christ formed within them by communion with his Holy Spirit. That going away created and inspired the Apostles, who, under God and Christ, created and inspired the Church. Jesus shook off his Judaic, his local, and his merely human character, and became the universal Son of Man, the native of all countries, the contemporary