the spirit; no division of the man against himself, no strife in the being of the righteous; but the glorious body shall be the glad minister of a holy will, and quickened by the pervading unity of the glorified spirit. And we know that "they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead," cannot "die any more for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection."-(St. Luke xx. 35, 36.) Nay more; we shall bear the likeness of the Son of God, of whom we read, when he appeared to St. John, that "his countenance was as the sun shining in his strength."-(Rev. i. 16.)

And yet the glory of the body would seem to be chiefly but the manifestation of the glory of the spirit. Then shall our regeneration be fulfilled. "We shall be like Him; for we shall see him as he is." What this mysterious likeness may mean, it is not for us too curiously to inquire. Certainly we know that every saint, while on earth, has had impressed upon him by the hand of God, his own definite character; and yet all have been likened to their Lord. All their several features of distinctness were comprehended in the perfect mind of Christ. They were all conformed to him; they were all knit in unity together, by their universal likeness to one common pattern; and so shall they doubtless be hereafter, when the faint beginnings of perfection shall be unfolded in the fulness of

God's kingdom. All the bonds and fetters of imperfection, all the heavy burden of earth and sinfulness, and all that checked the energies of their regenerate spirit, shall be abolished; and all that was in them of heaven and of God-all holy affections, and pure thoughts, and righteous intentions, shall break forth into the perfection of glory. All that Noah, Daniel, and Job, or David, and Paul, and John, sought and strove to be, by selfchastisement, and prayer, and righteousness of life, such they shall be, at "the manifestation of the sons of God." We now see, in those around us, that each one has some characteristic feature: in the mind of one we see a deep wisdom; of another, a saintly meekness; of another, an angelic contemplation; of another, a burning charity; each one being a law, a pattern to himself. We see, too, that this characteristic feature is ever coming out into a fuller shape, drawing towards its own perfect idea. So we may believe that, in the kingdom of the resurrection, all the gifts of God, all graces of the heart, and all endowments of the sanctified reason, shall then be made perfect: all the inscrutable features of the spiritual being of each several man shall be perpetuated; and then shall all differences be harmonized in the perfection of bliss, as all hues are blended in the harmony of light. Each one several and distinct, even as here, so shall he be there; each one shining forth in his own blessedness; and yet the song of the re

deemed, the everlasting chant of "all nations, and kindred, and people, and tongues," is but one; their voices without number, yet but one accordant hymn. So shall all perfection, and all righteousness, and all bliss, and all thanksgiving, be perfect in every saint, and united in one heavenly glory which shall encompass the righteous.

O wonderful and blessed thought, that the gift which is in us shall one day have the mastery over all obstructions; that all sins, and faults, and weaknesses, and ignorance, and all decay and wandering, and all the clouds which rest upon mortality, and all the hinderances of the world, (that bitter, treacherous world, still at enmity with God, and fulfilling the law that every man who will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution,) and of the flesh, shall be taken away; and that we shall be ripened into a mysterious perfection of the spiritual being! Blessed thought, and full of refreshment and calm to the weary and heavy laden! one day all their oppressions shall be rolled back from them, and they shall shine forth as the sun. By temptation, by wrestlings against evil, by crucifixion of self, by wrongs and snares from without, by sorrows and afflictions from above, every brother of the First-born in the family of man will bear His likeness, and be perfected by the keen edge of pain. By this longdrawn and weary strife, our patience, meekness, faith, perseverance, boldness, and loyalty to Christ

are ever tried; and by trial made perfect. When the Son of God himself passed into the heavens, he began to draw after him a glorious train of saints; like as the departing sun seems to draw after him the lights which reflect his own splendour, till the night starts out full of silver stars. So shine the saints in an evil world; rising and falling above the boundaries of earth, in steadfast and silent course, till all are lost in the brightness of the morning and so shall the firmament of the church break forth with the glory of the resurrection. But now, for a while, it tarries: some saints are yet in the mid-heaven, and some are yet to rise upon the world; and, till all is fulfilled, the desire of the church unseen is stayed with the "white robes," and the sound of the Bridegroom's voice.

Meanwhile, let us beware how we judge one another. Who knows what may lie hid in the man whom we slight and cast out as of no esteem? Who can say how he may outshine his fellows in the kingdom of the resurrection? "We fools accounted his life madness, and his end to be without honour: how is he numbered with the children of God, and his lot is among the saints! Therefore have we erred from the way of truth, and the light of righteousness hath not shined unto us, and the sun of righteousness rose not upon us.”—(Wisdom v. 4, 6.) Wonderful and overwhelming, to behold at that day the resurrection of the righteous, each one shining forth in his own distinguishable splen

dour! "Then shall we know, even as also we are known;" and there shall be strange overrulings of our blind judgments. Many that are first shall be last, and the last shall be first. The poor man thou didst despise an hour ago, shall sit higher than thou at the marriage-supper of the Lamb; and the simple and unlearned, and the lowly and slow of speech, whom the learned, and eloquent, and lofty, and prosperous, have despised as mean and foolish, shall be arrayed in exceeding brightness, before which they which despised them shall be dim and naked. Let us also beware how we give much care or thought to any thing but to the perfecting of our hidden life. What else is worth living for? What else shall endure at Christ's

coming? Most awful and searching day, when "the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days!" Let us, therefore, live ever waiting for that hour. What matter though we be poor, slighted, slandered, forgotten, moving in the shadows of the world, so that we attain unto a glorious resurrection? O most glad hour, when it shall dawn towards the first day of the everlasting week; when there shall be a making ready in the heaven above, and in the earth beneath; when legions of angels shall gather round the Sun of righteousness, and all orders and hosts of heaven shall know that the time for "the manifestation of the sons of God" is come. What