three separate instances in the New Testament, but it has been completely diverted by himself. Jesus rose from the dead, "the first fruits of them that sleep." We may, then, gather spring flowers with which to beautify the graves of our beloved dead from the garden in which they laid him; we may thus learn that death is to the believer but the angel of love, and the grave to a saint but the narrow gate that leads to glory. What blessed hope, then, does this Christianity teach us; what noble consolations does this Bible give us! Let us cherish it, let us love it, let us praise God for it, let us seek to feel it.

We learn here also, that the soul, separated from the body, plainly lives independent of that body. When this young man was raised, if there had been restored to him the mere animal life, he would have been nothing more than one of the brutes of the field; but there was restored to him not merely the beating heart, the breathing lungs, the circulating life-blood, the animal life which the horse, and the ox, and the dog all have in common with us, but there was restored to him the intellectual life and the moral life, the soul which is the man, and which man alone has. I have often tried to think-but perhaps it is wrong to speculate where the soul is when it is severed from the body. It is a very solemn thought. We know, if it be a child of God, what it is-we know what it enjoys, but the locality where it is, we know not. My impression is this that the souls of those that are gone may be far nearer to us than our absent friends and relatives are at this moment that the soul of your child, your father, your mother, your brother, or your sister, may be nearer to you at this moment than your actual living brother or sister. In other words, it may be perfectly true, that just as there are minute living creatures which our naked eye cannot see without a microscope, so there may be present

economy.

spiritual beings in the midst of us too ethereal for our gross senses to see in this As the ocean is a finer medium than the earth, the air a finer medium than the ocean, there may be a finer medium above all, and that may be where souls now are. There is something pleasing in this; that those that are gone, as we call it, may be actually present in the midst of us, seeing us, though we cannot see them, hearing us though we cannot hear them, frequenting our homes, visiting our abodes, appearing on our streets, near to us, and close to us. And yet we must neither pray to them, nor need we attempt to speak to them, for we can neither see them nor hear them. It is said by Roman Catholics that departed Christians pray for those that are left. It is not impossible; I do not see any thing unscriptural in the idea that saints that are in heaven may pray in heaven for those they have left upon earth. I do not assert that it is so, because the Scripture does not; but I do not see any thing impossible in it. It is quite a different thing for us to pray to them—that is idolatry, gross idolatry; we have but one Mediator, and that Mediator is Jesus Christ. If this be fact, then, it may be that those with whom we held sweet communion on earth may be merely gone into an upper room in the same house, separated from us only by a transparent vail, a thin partition, in short, that they are only in the chancel end of the same grand cathedral, and are there with us worshipping the same blessed Father, so that the communion of saints, the church militant with the church in glory, may be near and interlacing and intermingling, like the land and the sea. But wherever the soul of a believer is, it is infinitely happy, perfectly happy, and unscathed by earth's troubles. Chalmers said that heaven, the present abode of the soul, is not so much a locality, as a character. Let there be perfect holiness in any soul,

and let that soul be where you like, there it must have perfect happiness. Wherever there is perfect holiness, there there must be perfect happiness. If this thought can be made good by Scripture, or, indeed, if it is not contradicted by Scripture, let us draw instruction from it. We may be surrounded by a cloud of glorious witnesses, millions upon millions may be gazing upon this battle-field, wondering and waiting for the issue of this grand struggle, longing for that blessed day when to him that overcometh, as it is stated in Revelation, will be given to sit down with Christ upon his throne, as he has overcome and sat with the Father upon his throne.

The last lesson I would briefly notice, as I have already alluded to it, is our perfect recognition of each other in the future. I believe souls now severed from the body may recognise each other; I believe that souls, when restored and reunited to the body, shall fully recognise each other. In each of the three miracles of resurrection performed by Jesus in the Gospels, he restored the raised one to the family from whom he had fled. So likewise in the case of the daughter of Jairus, the maiden was restored to her parents, and they saw by her personal identity it was the same one that died. When Lazarus was raised, he was restored to Mary and Martha, and they knew him and conversed with him. When the young man was raised, he sat up; his mother knew that it was he, and he knew that that was his mother. I think there must be in these facts, so fully and so minutely stated, that the restored dead ones saw and were seen, spoke and were spoken to, and fully recognised each other, a dim foreshadow of that blessed day when all shall recognise each other, and groups shall be in heaven among whom personal friendships, begun on earth, shall last for ever. I do not think that friendship is so earthly in its nature that it perishes with

the body. Jesus recognised his mother in the agonies of death; Jesus had a friend, and that friend was Lazarus; and a disciple that he especially loved, and that was "the beloved disciple;" thus proving that Jesus hallowed friendships and relationships-and what he hallowed has the element of perpetuity, nay, of eternity itself, and shall last for ever. Let us rejoice in this blessed hope—that all circles will yet be restored, that all suspended relationships will yet be renewed, and that the joy the mother feels in the presence of the Lamb shall be reflected in the countenance of the child that feels it too, and that both shall be one ceaseless, uninterrupted, happy family in the presence of God and of the Lamb for ever!

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LECTURE XVI.

THE RESTORED DAUGHTER.

While he spake these things unto them, behold, there came a certain ruler, and worshipped him, saying, My daughter is even now dead: but come and lay thy hand upon her, and she shall live. And Jesus arose, and followed him, and so did his disciples. And, behold, a woman, which was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind him, and touched the hem of his garment for she said within herself, If I may but touch his garment, I shall be whole. But Jesus turned him about, and when he saw her, he said, Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour. And when Jesus came into the ruler's house, and saw the minstrels and the people making a noise, he said unto them, Give place: for the maid is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn. But when the people were put forth, he went in, and took her by the hand, and the maid arose.-MATT. ix. 18-25.

THREE great instances of resurrection from the dead are recorded in the Gospels, as achieved by him who is the Resurrection and the Life. Two of these I have already examined: I now direct your attention to the last, not the least beautiful and instructive of the three.

It appears that Jairus was a ruler, or, as he is called, apy, a chief person or prince of the synagogue. It would also seem, as this miracle was performed at Capernaum, that this ruler Jairus, the father of the maiden who was raised from the dead, was one of the elders spoken of in Luke vii., and who came to Jesus pleading for a certain centurion's servant, who was sick and ready to die. He was there pleading for the restoration of another; he is here pleading-if it be possible to conceive that he realized the idea of a resurrection of his daughter from the dead