in his heart-stricken bereavement to the church of the Saviour. With the lesson of death so vividly presented before him, that it might almost be imagined the apparition of his departed one stood in his sight, he has entered into the litanies, the prayers, the confessions, the teaching of the church with an unction he perhaps never felt before while a voice has seemed to address him, from every page of the sacred oracles, from every successive petition, "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see GOD: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another." "Jesus is the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in Him, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in Him shall never die." And thus communing with his own spirit in the anticipation of a blessed and blissful reunion with the spirit of his child, he has exclaimed, "I shall go to him, though he will not return to me."

The resignation of a man thus taught by divine grace, through the solemn services of the sanctuary, will be suitable to the place where he has been communing, and the topics to which his

attention has been directed. He may still feel a lingering regret for those he has lost, (and why should he not, when tears are the privilege of human nature alone, and Jesus wept ?) but that regret will be tempered by the sentiment, that his loss is their infinite gain; that if GOD for Christ's sake had forgiven their sins, if they have departed this life in the faith and hope of the gospel, they are now in the enjoyment of happiness, in comparison with which the splendour of royalty is but a meagre phantom. But should he, like David, be weeping over the opening grave of an infant child, cut off like a summer floweret, --a child that had been dedicated to GOD in the sacrament of baptism, without being able to thwart the full covenant of blessing,—a child in whom the seal of consecration remained with all its entireness, one who had felt no positive disbelief ever fluttering its little bosom, no temptation or tide of passion deluging its spirit,—should the mourner be dropping his bitter tear over the bier of his infant child,-resignation nay triumph in his privilege. Should there be one among us whose bosom melts at the recollection of a lost Pleiad, who recalls the memories due to some little star which gladdened his horizon for a few brief months and then was lost,-we urge upon

such an one, not to imagine that the twinkling radiance has expired. It burns in another and a brighter hemisphere. And if that parent will only live as one that is alive from the dead, if he will only yield himself unreservedly to the service of the Lord Jesus, a day shall come, a day of reunion and joy,-when there will be meetings, unbroken by farewells, and the very light which gladdened his eye, will gaze upon him refined, purified, and immortalized, for ever and for ever. Then, then, he will learn all the welcome and ecstasy which the royal mourner anticipated when he said, I shall go to him, though he will not return to me.

We have already somewhat anticipated the second part of our subject. We proposed to consider the grounds on which this resignation rested. Now we contend in the outset that the heathen never enjoyed these motives of consolation. However the hope of immortality may be accordant with the general apprehension of mankind, it has never given a practical relief to the heathen world, in moments of sorrow and bereavement. It is the exclusive prerogative of the gospel to bring life and immortality to light. Now, in stating the grounds upon which a Christian rests his conduct under the pressure of

sorrow for the dead, our argument would be incomplete if we did not place in the forefront the doctrine of the soul's immortality; not as presumed by the metaphysician, or fancied by the poet, or reasoned on by the philosopher, but as demonstrated at the resurrection of our Lord. We confess, however, that this is not our main point. Nor do we wish to dilate upon the resurrection of the human body, though the certainty of that magnificent restoration must unquestionably add an additional motive for resignation, if not triumph, when the spirit is dislodged from its earthly tenement, and begins to undergo the refining process, preparatory to its final glorification. We allude rather to the hope which Christians entertain of clasping the hands of their fathers and children once more; of recognizing each other's countenances, and after the strange revolutions of the grave, of not only living again with their personal consciousness undisturbed, but the full sense and certainty of the communion of old relatives and friends. recognition was guessed at even in the heathen world. The sentiment that the patriots and benefactors of mankind, the ancestral heroes of every age and empire, were grouped together in shadowy abodes; that there they conversed with

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each other, with all the continuity of consciousness, derived its origin from this universal impression; and though so often overborne by scepticism, that it seemed rather a fanciful theory than a practical truth, it serves to show how deeply fixed the notion was in the bosoms of mankind. Now, it may be urged that whatever arguments apply to the continuation of consciousness beyond the grave, apply with greater force to the continuation of friendship; but this low view of the question is not that we would chiefly impress upon a Christian. The great consoling principle to us, when a friend dies, is not a general confused notion derived from the questionable quarter of metaphysics, but a strong presumption derived from revealed truth. The common bond of Christian fellowship and love is Christ Jesus our Lord; we are one with each other, because we are one with Him; and if that oneness with him is to continue unimpaired throughout eternity, if those who have recovered the image of GOD their Saviour, are to continue conscious partakers of the glory to be revealed, as long as an indissoluble thing can exist, then the bond of Christian friendship will be unbroken also; the fellowship we have with Christ continuing, our friendship shall by direct consequence