therefore, He, and He only could be the opener of the world of graves. Man's power is wondrous. But to confer life is explicitly affirmed in the scriptures as the exclusive prerogative of Godhead. The mystery and the marvel cease when God is introduced-"that God should raise the dead." The words of our text are the Redeemer's assumption of divinity. In that benignant weeper over His friend's sepulcher we behold the omnipotent and eternal God. These words also affirm that through Him—the Christ-resurrection came to man. Christ to man is the resurrection-its source, spring, author, finisher in a sense in which no other can be. The stone has been rolled away from the door of His sepulcher, "Christ is risen, and has become the first fruits of them that slept." Christ then has a right to speak with authority.

Nor must we exclude from our thoughts the idea of a spiritual resurrection-the soul bursting from the tomb of its corruption and blooming into newness of life. Though all men inherit immortality, the future of the wicked is never dignified by the name of life. "Everlasting contempt,"-" Everlasting destruction." "They shall not see life, because the wrath of God. abideth upon them." This is a corpse world-dead in trespasses and sins. The sinner breathes in visible life, thinks in intellectual life, feels in emotional life, but he is destitute of spiritual life. But the Christian's life is in Christ. From the tomb of his corruption he rises by Christ into a moral resurrection, and becomes, by faith in Christ, "dead unto sin, but alive unto God." He is quickened, He was formerly dead. He has passed from death unto life. This is the deeper meaning which the term in the text embodies. Oh, the glorious fullness of a completed resurrection,, which at once ransoms the body from the grave and the soul from the foul sepulcher of

sin! Do you wonder that like Paul at Athens we should preach to you "Jesus and the resurrection ?"

Dwell on this comforting thought, tempted, sorrowing believer, for it speaks of encouragement and assurance. Art thou mourning for friend, companion, child? Oh, let Jesus stand by thee, and as thou listenest to his inspiring words, be comforted, and thy frame shall feel the pulses of a glad hope as when nature stirs in the first blush of spring. If they and thou are alike in Jesus, then hast thou not looked the last upon thy friends. There shall not be a vesture of death about either thee or them. Ye shall rise in the faultlessness of thy new character-the Lamb's unspotted bride. Let us realize the double consolation-comfort for the mourners who are crushed beneath some pressing sorrow, comfort for mourners who wrestle with some giant sin, and in our distress, and in our feebleness, let us hear the voice again, as once, by the charnel cave of Lazarus, it ran electric, like a line of light, to make the blood flow freely in the veins of the living and then leaped into the sepulcher to relax even the very grip of death itself. "I am the resur

rection and the life."

II. Dwell for a little upon the word "life"—that word that is always music-that word, next to the word "God in Christ" has in it the deepest meaning in the world. We have anticipated this somewhat. But let us cross the flood where that life specially is, whose path the Saviour is to show, the mansions which He has gone to prepare. Jesus is called, "The true God and eternal life." What is this eternal life, which is held before the believer's eye, and chartered as his privilege?

This life is conscious; death cannot for one moment paralyze the soul. Paul said it was "far better to depart." He knew the moment he was released from mortality he should be with Christ. There is not a moment's

interval of slumber for the soul-we do not cease to be. We only change the conditions of our being. There is no human soul, which from the day of Adam until now has ever dwelt in clay, that is not alive to-day! It is a conscious world into which we are passing.

Again, Heaven is not a solitude. It is a peopled city -where there one no strangers, no homeless, no poor, where one does not pass another in the street without greeting, where no one is envious of another's superior minstrelsy or of another's more brilliant crown. They are not only with the Saviour, but with the "General Assembly," and with "the spirits of the just made perfect;" all affections are pure, all enjoy conscious recognition, all abide in perpetual reunion, in a home without a discord, without an illness, without a grave.

Take comfort, then; those from whom you have parted or from whom you shall have soon to separate, shall be your companions again, recognized as of old, and loved with a purer love.

The resurrection and the life--what heart is not thrilled with the preciousness of the promise-who does not feel more grateful to the Redeemer, who brings him life? Enjoyed recompense, recovered friends-there for ever and Jesus with us there!

DEAR as thou wert, and justly dear,
We will not weep for thee;

One thought will check the starting tear,
It is that thou art free.

And thus shall Faith's consoling power
The tears of love restrain:

Oh! who that saw thy parting hour,
Could wish thee here again?

THE BELIEVER, IN LIFE, DEATH, AND
ETERNITY.

REV. JOSEPH HASLEGRAVE, ENGLAND.

ON OCCASION OF THE DEATH OF TWO YOUNG LADIES, TEACHERS IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL.

He shall enter into peace; they shall rest in their beds, cach one walking in his uprightness."-ISAIAH lvii : 2.

MAN dieth and wasteth away; yea, man giveth up

the ghost, and where is he?

Beneath the green sod, on which we lightly tread and drop the tear, lies mingling with its kindred dust, the form with which we were once familiar, and whose presence may have called forth many a deep and happy emotion; but where is the invisible spirit that once energized, animated, lived in it? The soul, where is it? That it has not ceased existence, its own throbbings after immortality, its own hopes or fears of future being, its own inherent consciousness that dissolution has no power over it, may well be taken as proof, while the revelation of God has left the matter beyond all doubt, and has assured us, that when the body returns to the dust as it was, the soul returns to God who gave it, to be disposed of as most fitting, either to enjoy Him, or to be banished from Him for ever.

What a thought, as we walk the cemeteries and think of the dead and buried of past generations, and, musing among the tombs, the inscription meets our eye, recording the mortal remains sleeping beneath; yet in that very word "mortal" beckoning to man's immortal part with the question, "Where is it?" The mother that gave me birth, the father that protected and provided

for my helpless youth, the brother, the sister, the husband, the wife, the friend, the companion-"where ?" "Your fathers, where are they ?" The grave answers, "Their mortal remains are with me, but I have no more in my keeping." The Bible answers, "Their immortal spirits are living unto God."

And as the tear of hopeful sorrow drops upon the precious dust, the prayer heaves within, "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his." Not a few such, thank God, we have known, who have thus fallen "asleep in Jesus." And eminently has it been thus with the two much loved and departed ones, whose faith and conversation we would summon to your remembrance on this mournful occasion; mournful only to the Church below, because of its bereavement, but joyful to the Church above, because of its addition to its numbers; for truly and emphatically may it be said of both, as the narrative of their last hours will prove they have "entered into peace," or sweetly glided away in peace; they are now "resting in their beds, each one walking in her uprightness.'

Whatever be the lasting impressions made on survivors, the departed righteous have "entered into peace." In respect to their bodies, they are resting in their peaceful dormitories; in respect to their souls, cach is walking before God in its uprightness.

Commentators have understood this latter, as descriptive of their life or walk with God while on earth; determining alike the circumstances of their leaving it, and the consequences. Theirs was a life before God of uprightness; at its close, therefore, as a happy consequence, it is a departing in peace; the soul at once entering into the fullness thereof, in the land of everlasting uprightness; and the body slumbering in its bed,