grateful love by bearing a cross. Put on the whole armour of God, and reckon the bearing and the doing of His will a heaven upon earth. Remember, He never hides His face from His people; sin alone can blot out that presence which is sweeter than all beside; with Him "is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." With all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength, worship and serve Him Who reigneth over all, your own elder Brother, your Redeemer. This is what He asks of yoube His, and His alone, to be servant to His crea tures for His sake, - to love with the whole heart fervently, to give, with lip, and eye, and hand, liberally of the love and joy you have received from Him; and offering up even affections, intellect, yea, every lent power on His altar, to press onward and onward still to the Inheritance where He wills for you rest without a rest.

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THERE IS JOY IN DEATH.

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HE first and dearest wish of the believer's heart must ever be for the fulness of time, when the Lord Jesus shall have gathered around Him all the scattered members of His family, those whom He found sleeping as well as those whom He found militant, and when for ever He shall have extinguished the power of Satan and done away with sin..

But, bound in the deepest yearnings of love to his Lord, and knowing that Wisdom and Love have appointed the right day, though in ardent, he yet also waits in patient hope, for the time of the gathering unto Him. And remembering that the sleeping saints shall be the first to meet Him at His coming, and that till then they rest in Jesus, free from all touch of pain, all shadow of sorrow, beyond the tainting touch of that sin which has so often caused them to be a grief to their Saviour, his next longing is to depart and be with Him; to bid farewell to the world which is enslaved to Satan; to drop the tabernacle which has so often proved a desecrated temple; to exchange life's fever for death's sleep, life's din for the calm of Paradise; to be absent from the body and present with the Lord; to rest on

the bosom of Jesus, secure that nothing can part more from that Saviour; to know what is the full depth of the word that has gone forth from Jehovah, "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord!"

But stay, you say; I have hope, but I have fear too. I have a glorous future, but maybe a dark valley, a deep river, lies between: for death is the portal even of heaven. The body must be laid (in most cases) in the narrow tomb, ere it can be raised in incorruption; death-pangs may assail me and my loved ones- for awhile at least we must part; the cherished clay must be torn from embrace and sight, and be given into the cold tomb to turn to corruption. Life's path must become desert; vacant places, missing voices, absent forms, must wring the heart at every turn. Say, then, is not death a cruel enemy, fears of which must haunt man all his life long? Though there is blessed hope for after death, say, can there be joy in death?

Yes, poor, sad one! Yes, trembler! for the sting of death is gone. Christ has conquered death by

dying. He has hallowed the sleeper's bed by Himself making earth His couch. He bids away all fear by promising His presence to their spirits, His care to their ashes, till body and soul shall be reunited in the great day. True, He has not told us all the secrets of the unseen world; but had He done so, maybe our finite minds could not have understood them. Enough that the spirits of His chosen sleep in him; the ashes rest in hope; and scattered