little, easy, quiet, unpretending, almost invisible, and yet powerful; in one word, human kindnesses." Led by these, there is nothing but may be expected of man. Bad, cold, apparently dead, kindness will respond to kindness, love will answer to its kindred love Show him that God loves more than man, and he will love God; lead him to think of heaven as a place where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest, and he will endeavor to prepare himself for it.

I look upon the present as a time in which we ought to prepare ourselves for the society of heaven. Paul teaches us that the Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe." "But," he continues, "before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith that should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was our school-master to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster." Or, in other words, we are no longer under the law, but under faith, finishing our works, and enriching our minds for the spirit land. It is therefore said, " But we all with open face beholding as in a glass

the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory, to glory even as by the spirit of the Lord." While there is a predicted end of sin and suffering, and an assurance that, "Forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that, through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil," spirit, with its acquisitions, must live forever. "Can it be supposed, that a soul furnished with such powers and capacities, capable of traversing the realm of creation, of opening new prospects into the unbounded regions of truth that lie before it, and of appreciating the perfections of the Sovereign of the universe, a soul fired with ardent desires after knowledge, panting after new discoveries of truth and of the grandeur of the Divinity, unsatisfied with all its past attainments, and contemplating a boundless, unexplored prospect before it, should be cast off from existence, and sink into eternal annihilation, at the moment when its capacities were just beginning to expand, when its desires were most ardent, and when the scenes of immensity and eternity were just opening to its view? If such a supposition could be admitted, man would be the

most inexplicable phenomenon in the universe; his existence an unfathomable mystery; and there could be no conceivable mode of reconciling his condition and destination with the wisdom, the rectitude, and the benevolence of his Creator."* O precious, precious is the hour devoted to the service of God. The enjoyment of such an hour is not only present, but it enlarges the mind for the future. And the soul that is thus engaged from year to year, that is not dilatory in spiritual affairs, that finds something to live for besides self, is making itself ripe for a journey among the stars and suns of glory..

II. I mean by man's mediate, the state between death and the resurrection. After the sunshine and shade of man's life, he lies down in the grave. As it is beautifully said, "In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the window shall be darkened, and the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low;

*Dick's Future state.

also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail, because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets; or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken,or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.' He dies with the acquisitions of the present. I know not how long he is in his coil of flesh after death. It may be a moment, it may be three days, as in the case of Jesus. I am equally ignorant of the duration of the im pure passions. Two things, however, should not be overlooked in this place. 1. This is the last death. 2. He that is dead is freed from sin. Beyond this there is no more death, and sin hath no longer its accustomed dominion over us. But, as Paul was particular in answering the question, "How are the dead raised up, and with what body do they come ?" I will proceed to notice in the third place, man's future.

With the exception of the change freeing

us from tempters and passions, and from attending sufferings of every description, or, in different words, without the encumbrances of the present, its sins, its deaths, its sorrows, its pains and afflictions, we commence the future life. Or to answer as Paul answered, "That which thou sowest is not quickened except it die; and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not the body that shall be, but bare grain; it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain; but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body. All flesh is not the same flesh; but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual