The Glory of the Righteous.

MATTHEW xiii. 43.

"Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father."

Ir has pleased God to ordain that even the righteous shall die; that they shall be bowed and bent with ills of the flesh, scathed and withered up by the powers of the visible world, by cold and heat, and pestilence, and famine, and the like; that their earthly nature shall be as it were warred upon, and beat down, and brought into bondage, by the strife of matter. The earthly bodies of the holiest are oftentimes 'marred more than any man' by sharp pains, and lingering anguish, and fearful forms of fleshly evil; or if not so afflicted, yet we see the faculties of nature decay, the sight wax dim, and the ear heavy, and the whole man grow weak and weary, and spent with bearing the burden and the load of a sinking body. "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 windows 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; 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," (Eccles. xii. 3-5); then it comes to pass, that the wisest of men turns again to the wandering of a child; the most piercing reason is as dull as if it were worn away; the memory is misleading and confused; and all the intellectual powers seem to be suspended and confused.

But there is a mystery of humiliation far greater than this, into which, also, the righteous are permitted to enter. It is most certain, that they partake moreover of what may be called the spiritual decays of old age. Sometimes, indeed, the righteous depart like Moses, the servant of the Lord, who "was an hundred and twenty years old when he died," and yet "his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated;" but if we look at Jacob, and Eli, and David, and Solomon, and many more, and at many also of whom we read in the history of the church, or whom we ourselves see around us, we shall discern that the decays of nature are felt also in the powers and habits of the spiritual life; and the moral failings which beset old age, gather even about those in whom is the gift of righteousness. We see them, for instance, more or less,

under what may be called the powers of dissolution. Even the best of men, when they grow old, become credulous, and irresolute, and of a weak will, and feeble in self-control-and are quickly kindled, and haunted by false fears and fanciful suspicions—and break out into little eccentricities -and are sensitive if remarked upon, or resisted, or advised.

And these little mists rise up, and draw a haze over the brightness of the spirit. Without doubt, the righteous, who have made provision, by selfdiscipline and restraint of temper, in the time of strength, have a great and visible advantage over all others; yet it is not to be denied that even they, when they come under decay, enter into the shadows of our human infirmity.

But as, in the kingdom of nature, the powers of life are often secret and hidden, without a visible presence; and like as Christ's kingdom in the world has a deep root, striking out on every side, changing things inwardly into its own likeness, revealing itself outwardly by signs and tokens and a visible form, but is itself hidden and invisible; so has it ever been, and ever shall be, with the righteous. They look like other men: they have the same wants, the same toils, the same gains and losses, the same sicknesses and decays, the same besetting infirmities of a fallen nature: though there be something in them, like the hidden life in nature, and the inward Spirit in the church, which

often makes itself felt from within, and seems to be at the point of showing itself openly to the world, yet it still lies under a veil. The light of the righteous does indeed "shine before men," but not in all its fulness; enough to bespeak the gift that is in them, but not to unfold its breadth and glory.

But this gift of righteousness which now lies hid and obscured in us, shall hereafter be unfolded in its perfection in the kingdom of God: that is to say, when all things are fulfilled, and the end is come, and the righteous shall have passed through all the changes which lie between the decay of our mortal bodies and our perfect renewal in the image of God that is, at the resurrection, when the whole man, in body, soul, and spirit, shall be raised from the dead, "then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun." By "the kingdom of their Father," therefore, is meant the kingdom of the resurrection. Then shall all that here lay hid in them be unfolded: all shall be perfect, and enlarged to an ineffable perfection. The body in which we have groaned, "being burdened;" in which we have often fainted, and fallen back from "the law of the Spirit of life;" in which we have been bowed down to earth with blindness, and deafness, and deadness of powers and sense-even that same earthly frame shall be full of life, and penetrated with the light of heaven. There shall be in it no more any law warring against the law of