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gives the children bread, he denies not to them the crumbs which fall from the table. How many tears did this faith wipe away! how many sad and forlorn spirits did it calm and cheer! and what a hopeful vista did it open to bereaved and bleeding hearts beyond the otherwise cheerless grave! Let us bless God for every drop of consolation which this doctrine has afforded to poor sorrowing heathen in the hour of fresh bereavements.

Then, too, these views are creditable to human friendship, even where it is only human. Glad are we, in this fallen world, amid the disorganising and dividing influences of sin, to see hearts thus clinging to each other through life, and refusing even to be hopelessly sundered in death. These tendrils of living affection are like flowery vines that grow over doleful ruins to hide their hideousness, and to make the world more beautiful. Oh! why should not this be prophetic of the final and eternal renovation of our social life in heaven, where the ruins of the fall shall be restored, and where all that sin has divided shall be brought together again into the joyful embraces of holy love. We find it hard to consider a doctrine so full of consolation, and so creditable to true friendship, as only

"The herald of a lie."

We find it hard to believe that this agreeable hope, which rises like a May sun over the world of social life, cheering and warming and making it beautiful, and which often sets in richest glory, shall be finally and for ever lost in night. No-it will surely rise again in new beauty, when the eternal morning shall dawn upon the grave; holy affections, as well as glorious bodies, shall come forth from the tomb; suspended ties of affection, which, like plants whose life

retired during winter into the bosom of the earth, will revive in vernal loveliness, and bloom on in an eternal spring.

In this connection, it occurs to me that there are sceptics in the world in these last days! Sceptics, who profess to regard with cold and stoic indifference all hopes and fears in reference to a future life. They boast of following the dictates of nature, reason, and the intuitive motions of an inward sense. Here, in these Pagan ideas, is nature uttering its desires, its hopes, its wants, its fears-here is a voice from the deeps of burdened hearts, strong as humanity, under the pressure of infinite wants, can utter; and what does it proclaim, but the truth so plainly revealed in God's word, that the infinite longings of the human heart can find no full satisfaction on this side of an immortal life? This solemn and important truth the heart of every modern sceptic would still utter, did he not drown the voice of his own higher nature in the revilings and riotings, in the stupidity and slumbers, of earthliness and sin! Who would not be ashamed of his infidelity, when reproved by the earnest but groping heathen? Another life-and a better one-all nature proclaims. Another life-and a better one-is uttered from the constitution of our nature in the restlessness of its infinite desires. Another life-and a better one-God promises to all who will seek it by faith in Christ, who brought immortality to light. There, and there alone, are enduring treasures; there alone are joys that end not-there is life without ills, and affections that never die.

We pity the poor bewildered Pagans; and it is right that we should; but let us not so misuse our superior mercies, as to give them just cause to rise up in judgment to con

demn us. We enjoy superior light-let us love and use it. Let us not disgrace our faith by sorrowing for our dead even more than those who have no hope. Let our faith and hope in another life be stronger than theirs-let our affections towards our friends be holier while they are with us-let our sorrows after them be more chastened and submissive when they are taken away-let our desires after them, and the blessed inheritance upon which they have entered, be like a holy cord in our hearts to draw us away from the low delights of earth and sin—and let our gratitude to God be ardent and endless as his goodness is to us.

If we have tears to weep, let it be for the wretched on earth, and not for those who rest from their toils and woes. Weep for the dead who are dead in sin, not for the living who are alive and blest in heaven. And you, who have never been made alive in Christ Jesus, weep for yourselves. Go not to the tomb where the ashes of buried love repose -where a kindred saint sleeps in Jesus as in a downy bed -but go to the cross, and weep tears of penitence over your sins, till Jesus wipes them away.

Oh, weep not for the dead!

Rather, oh! rather give the tear
To those that darkly linger here,
When all besides are fled.

Weep for the spirit withering
In its cold, cheerless sorrowing;

Weep for the young and lovely one,

That ruin darkly revels on;

But never be a tear-drop shed

For them, the pure enfranchised dead!

CHAPTER III.

Beavenly Recognition a Quiversal Belief, Bope,

and Desire.

I call'd on dreams and visions to disclose

That which is veiled from waking thoughts; conjured

Eternity, as men constrain a ghost,

T' appear and answer; to the grave I spake
Imploringly ;-looked up, and asked the heavens

If angels traversed their cerulean floors

If fixed or wandering star could tidings yield

Of the departed spirit—what abode

It occupies-what consciousness retains

Of former loves and interests?

WORDSWORTH, Ex. Bk. III.

THAT the saints in light shall again recognize and know each other, and renew the acquaintances and friendships formed on the earth, is a universal belief, hope, and desire. Some, it is true, have affected to doubt it, and even to pretend that it is not desirable that it should be true; but not, we think, earnestly, and with a sincere and humble zeal for the truth. Any doubts which have existed in regard to this point, have, we are inclined to suppose, been the result of affectation; or, to attribute to such doubters the most charitable motives, they have been entertained under the influence of mere negative considerations. If, therefore, there are a few affected doubters, they are the exception,

and not the rule; and we are not hindered in considering the desire after, and the belief in, future recognition, as a universal sentiment.

A few remarks on this subject will convince any one of ordinary reflection, observation, and experience, that the hope and desire of finding again in heaven those loved and lost on earth, is strictly universal. We have seen how Pagans have viewed it; we shall find it equally general in Christian lands. Not only do we find allusions to this doctrine, taking its truth for granted, among learned philosophers and theologians; but we hear of it, in like manner, among the quiet orders of common and humble life. There is not a country grave-yard, where some monumental stone does not record it, and where this hopeful thought does not prompt the rising sigh in the bosom of bereaved and sorrowing hearts, and where this sigh is not again calmed by a rising faith in this doctrine. There is scarcely a funeral discourse pronounced at the grave of the pious, in which it is not referred to in tones of sweet consolation. There is scarcely a funeral hymn in which it is not mentioned, referred to, or taken for granted. There is scarcely a death-bed around which it does not linger, like the mellow notes of a long loved song, either on the lips of the dying, or from sympathizing friends who crowd affectionately around, to hand the departing one softly down into the Lethean stream.-Immediately after writing the last sentence, I was called, as pastor, to visit a young Sabbath-school scholar on her death-bed. She was about twelve years old, and had been much afflicted. She requested me to sing. I asked her what hymn she loved, Having a few minutes before risen

promising to sing it.

from my meditations on this subject, to call on her, it was

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