mourning friends draw around the cold and silent grave, where reposed all that remained of a kind and affectionate brother. The sympathies of their friends were touched. The fountain of compassion burst forth. 'Jesus wept.' Precious words! Like balm to the wounded spirit; like a star breaking forth amidst the loneliness of night; like the silent dew upon the opening flower. How much is embraced in this single sentence; the shortest, yet the most touching in all the Scriptures! No wonder the Jews said, 'Behold how he loved him!' How amiable does the Saviour appear in every trait of his character, but especially in his sympathy for the afflicted and bereaved! What a Saviour did God promise to the world! What a moment of intense interest to the sisters; to the cause of Christianity, and to the world! What a bearing upon our ultimate destiny! Suppose a failure! How would the infidel have scoffed and triumphed, although it would have been over the grave of his own hopes; for who needs the consolations and pity of a Saviour more than those who have no pity for themselves? After a solemn prayer to the Being who gave him his power, he cries, with a loud voice, 'Lazarus, come forth! And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes, and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.' And the same voice will ultimately awaken all the sleeping dead, not to all the infirmities and ills of life, but to an immortal existence !

But why is Jesus called the Resurrection and the life? It is not because he was the first to arise

from the dead, for there had been five resurrections previous to his own.* He was the first that rose to die no more; the first that rose to give others a pledge and assurance of their rising after him. This resurrection is the cause, the pattern, the pledge of our resurrection. In this sense, he is 'the First-fruits of them that slept;' 'the First-born from the dead.' The world now beholds a living demonstration of the resurrection of all the dead. Hence the Apostle Peter says, 'Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which, according to his abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you.'t Now 'we sorrow not even as others who have no hope; for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.'

In fine, Jesus broke the silence of the lonely chambers of death. He entered his dreary kingdom, for he afterwards declared to John the Revelator, 'I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.' In short, as a fine writer says, ‘And designing to pour forth a torrent of lustre on the life, the everlasting life of man, he did not bid the firmament cleave asunder, and the constellations of eternity shine out in their majesty, and dazzle and blind an overawed creation. He rose up a moral giant from his grave-clothes, and proving death vanquished

* See title FIRST-BORN FROM THE DEAD. Also FIRST-FRUITS. 1 Peter i. 3, 4. 1 Thess. iv. 13, 14. § Rev. i. 18.

in his strong-hold, left the vacant sepulchre as a centre of light to the dwellers on this planet. He took not the suns and systems which crowd immensity, in order to form one brilliant cataract, which, rushing down in its glories, might sweep away darkness from the benighted race of the apostate. But he came forth from the tomb, masterful and victorious, and the place where he had lain became the focus of the rays of the long-hidden truth, and the fragments of his grave-stone were the stars from which flashed the immortality of man.'*

Brought up amidst the light and blessings of Christianity, it is difficult for us to conceive of the real value and worth of the doctrine of the Resurrection. If we could for a moment throw ourselves back amid the darkness of the ancient world, we might appreciate the great blessing. Let us enter the domestic circle. A loved one was removed. "The child was to its mother but as the frail vine that clambered around her door, and when death called the one from her embrace, and winter nipped the other at its root, she no more hoped that the one would again bless her sight than that the other would again shade her window with its blossoms. There was an Elysium, the priests and poets said, but not for her, nor for any thing that belonged to her; the green land had no home for the fair creature from her bosom gone." She cherished its ashes in an urn, perhaps; and a meet emblem and sign it was of the fate of the innocent one; a meet emblem of dissolution and death, of grief that would

Sermons by HENRY MELVILL. Vol. i., ser. v

not be comforted, of any thing but hope, and faith, and heaven.' Man complained that the sun and stars would rise again; but when his day was set, he must lie down in darkness, and sleep a perpetual sleep.

'Alas! the tender herbs and flow'ry tribes,
Though crushed by Winter's unrelenting hand,
Revive and rise when vernal zephyrs call;
But we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise,
Bloom, flourish, fade and fall,-and then succeeds
A long, long, silent, dark, oblivious sleep;
A sleep which no propitious Power dispels,
Nor changing seasons, nor revolving years.'

Indeed, man was groping his way, guided by a few transitory and uncertain beacons, amid desolate realms of mental darkness and chaos. 'And God said, Let there be light! and there was light.' And the Resurrection and the life appeared. The firstborn from the womb of nature meets the morning of his resurrection. He arises a conqueror from the grave; he returns with blessings from the world of spirits; he brings salvation to the souls of men. Never did the returning sun usher in a day so glorious. It was the jubilee of the universe. The morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted aloud for joy. The Father of Mercies looked down from his throne in the heavens with complacency; he beheld his world restored; he saw his work that it was good. Then did the desert rejoice: the face of nature was gladdened before him when the blessings of the Eternal descended as the dews of heaven for the refreshing of the nations.' Then was 'heard a great voice out of heaven, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell

with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.'* And now the dark, impenetrable veil that has hung over the grave for ages has been lifted up. The cold Jordan of death has been passed, and we hear the gracious and consoling words coming up from the tomb, 'Because I live, ye shall live also.' 'I am the Resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.' And to the bereaved he says, Mothers! take again your children to your arms, for they are living. Sons! your aged parents are coming forth in the vigor of regenerated years. Friends! behold, your dearest connexions are waiting to embrace you. The tombs are burst. Generations long since lost in slumbers are awaking. Is there not something pleasant in the thought of dying

of leaving a world of sorrow; scenes of grief, and going home to our Father in heaven; to a world radiant in immortal beauty, and glowing with unearthly splendor and loveliness!

'Where the saints of all ages in harmony meet,
Their Saviour and brethren transported to greet;
While the anthems of rapture unceasingly roll,
And the smile of the Lord is the life of the soul.'

Come, then, the last hour, in God's own time, and a good life and a glorious hope shall make it

* Rev. xxi. 3, 4.