religion and goodness to lead it up to God? Yet those who will admit the mission in all other cases, question it in his case. But what was true in them was much more so in him. He was conscious from the first that he was selected. "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" "To this end I was born, that I might bear witness to the truth." "God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world, through him, might be saved." "For this cause came I to this hour." "I have finished the work given me to do."

Jesus, by his nature and organization, by his education, by the very time of his birth, by the inspiration and influence of the Holy Spirit, was elected and called. And he fulfilled his part perfectly; and so, the two conditions being met, he became Saviour of the world, and perpetual Ruler of the moral and spiritual nature of man.

§ 10. Other Illustrations of Individual Calling and Election. But it is not merely great men, and men of genius, who are thus providentially chosen and sent. Every man is chosen for something, and that something not vague and general, but special and distinct.

You

You go into some country village of New England. find there some plain farmer, of no great education, perhaps, but endowed with admirable insight and sagacity, and of a kind and benevolent nature. He has come to be the counsellor and adviser of the whole community. He has no title; he is not even a "squire." He has no office; he is not even a justice of the peace. But he fulfils the mission of peacemaker and of sagacious counsellor. He is judge without a seat on the bench; he is spiritual guide without being called "reverend ; " he is the stay, the centre, the most essential person in the place. He has had an evident calling from God, not from man, and he has made it sure by his diligence and fidelity in his work.

And perhaps in the same village is a woman, poor, old,

and uneducated. But she, too, has a calling from God. She is always sent for in the hour of trial. If any accident happens, she is there. Her sagacity and experience help her to do what is needed. She has no medical diploma, but she is the good physician of the place. God gave to her native sagacity, gave to her benevolence, gave her acute observation and a good memory, and she has made her election sure by her own fidelity.

Some persons are called to love and teach little children: that is their work. They are happy with children, and children are happy with them. Some are called to sympathize; their natures overflow with sympathy; they enter readily into all trials and into the troubles of every soul, and they pour oil and wine into the wounds of the heart. God called them to be his good Samaritans, and they hear the call and obey.

"A place for everything, and everything in its place," says the prudent housekeeper. "A place for every man, and every man in his place," says the divine Housekeeper, who has so many mansions in his house, and whose Son said he went to prepare a place for us there in the other world a working place, probably, and a sphere of labor there as here. But in this world, too, what a delight it is to see any one in his right place!

There are different ways in which God calls us, and different kinds of callings. But every calling of God is good and noble. He calls us to work; he calls us to Christian goodness; he calls us to heavenly joy, to glory, honor, and immortality. These are the three great callings of man Christian work first, Christian goodness next, Christian glory last. Since God made every one of us, he made every one of us for something; he has appointed a destiny for each one, and he calls us to it. If we do not hear the gentle call, the whisper of his grace, he calls us by trial, by disaster, by disappointment. He chastens us for our profit. He prunes

our too luxuriant branches that we may bring forth more fruit.

So this doctrine of election, in its other form, as usually taught by Orthodoxy, so harsh and terrible,-"horribile decretum," so dishonorable to God, so destructive to morality, so palsying to effort, grows lovely and encouraging when looked at aright.

As one grows old, and looks back over his past life, he sees the working of this divine decree working where he concurred with it, working where he resisted it. He sees more and more clearly what his election was, and how he has fulfilled it, how far failed. He sees himself as a youth, fiery and ardent, striving for one thing, educated by God for another. He sees how he was partly led and partly driven into his true work; how he has been made an instrument by God for good he never dreamed of to God's other children. He says, "It is no doing of mine. It is the Lord's doing. He chose me for it before the foundation of the world. I builded better than I knew. I have. failed in a thousand plans of my own, but I have ignorantly fulfilled God's plans. I am like Saul, the son of Kish, who went out to seek his father's asses, and found a kingdom. I am like Schiller's explorer, who went to sea with a thousand vessels, and came to shore saved in a single boat, yet having in that boat the best result of the whole voyage."

CHAPTER XII.

IMMORTALITY AND THE RESURRECTION.

§ 1. Orthodox Doctrine. The Orthodox doctrine of the future life is thus stated in the Assembly's Catechism, chapter

"I. The bodies of men, after death, return to dust, and see corruption; but their souls (which neither die nor sleep) having an immortal subsistence, immediately return to God who gave them. The souls of the righteous, being then made perfect in holiness, are received into the highest heavens, where they behold the face of God, in light and glory, waiting for the full redemption of their bodies. And the souls of the wicked are cast into hell, where they remain in torments and utter darkness, reserved to the judgment of the great day. Besides these two places for souls separated from their bodies, the Scripture acknowledgeth none.

"II. At the last day, such as are found alive shall not die, but be changed; and all the dead shall be raised up with the selfsame bodies, and none other, although with different qualities, which shall be united again with their souls forever.

"III. The bodies of the unjust shall, by the power of Christ, be raised to dishonor; the bodies of the just by his Spirit unto honor, and be made conformable to his own glorious body."

The views here given may be considered, on the whole, the Orthodox notions on this subject, although Orthodoxy is by no means rigorous on these points. Considerable diversity of opinion is here allowed. The nature of the life

between death and the resurrection, and the nature of the resurrection body, are differently apprehended, without any discredit to the Orthodoxy of the belief. But, on the whole, we may say that the Orthodox views on these topics include the following heads:

1. Man consists of soul and body.

2. The soul of man is naturally immortal.

3. The only satisfactory proof of this immortality is the resurrection of Christ.

4. Christ's resurrection consisted in his return to earth in the same body as that with which he died, though glorified. 5. Our resurrection will consist in our taking again the same bodies which we have now, glorified if we are Christians, but degraded if we are not.

On the other hand, those views which incline towards rationalism and spiritualism agree in part with these statements, and in part differ; thus:

1. They usually agree with Orthodoxy in believing man to consist of soul and body.

2. They also agree in believing the soul of man naturally immortal.

3. They differ from Orthodoxy in thinking the proof of immortality to be found in human consciousness, not at all in the resurrection of Jesus.

We will therefore examine these two points of immortality and the resurrection, to see what the true doctrine of Scripture is concerning them.

§ 2. The Doctrine of Immortality as taught by Reason, the Instinctive Consciousness, and Scripture. The first class of proofs usually adduced for immortality are the rational proofs, which are such as these:

THE METAPHYSICAL PROOF. This is based on the distinction of soul and body. The existence of the soul is proved exactly as we prove the existence of the body. If