But is the answer of death, an answer of woe? When we consider that each one of us must soon or late be called away, does the thought bring gloom-despair? Not despair, however much of sorrow may attend the parting hour. It may indeed at times be a relief to look forward to the moment when it will be permitted us to lie down to rest under the shadow of the wings of the Almighty, and to be restored to the society of the loved ones who have gone before to the unseen world; but to leave the blessings that we have in full enjoyment, to part from the dear companions and friends of our earthly course without a pang, to be able to look forward to our own departure without a painful thought-that surely is a privilege of beings only of diviner faculties than ours, and if possible to a man of like powers with our own, would argue insensibility. The tears of Jesus have divinely taught us that there is no sin in human grief. If he wept even when he had just declared himself the Resurrection and the Life, even when about to exert the power given him from on high to recal from the tomb the friend he mourned, then we may rest assured that God will not look upon us as either faithless, or forgetful of His promises, when our hearts seek and find that relief from the burden of sorrow which nature asks. Only let us never sorrow as those who have no hope. Let the words and the example of the divine sufferer never be forgotten : "The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?"* Let the sublime words of the apostle,† too, abide in our memory, and they will fill us with his own faith and hope and trust. In our text he blends the thought of the answer of death in ourselves, with lessons of heavenly consolation. And how truly may the experience of one, be made the experience of all! "Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the

comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God."*' As the apostle, following in his Master's steps, abounded alike in his sufferings and consolation, and shared both with his fellowlabourers and disciples, so we may all (however different may be our own trials and afflictions from those by which Paul and his companions were "pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that they despaired even of life")—so may we all be directed to the one source of all consolation and strength, that having the "answer of death in ourselves, we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead."

When, therefore, considering our life here in this world, and feeling and knowing as we do that in ourselves we have the answer of death, we have consolation, and faith, and hope, and trust, and strength, in God who raiseth the dead.

It is in Him that we live and move and have our being. As we look within and around us, we feel how true it is that we are absolutely nothing of ourselves. But when we look up to Him, our own weakness is a source of strength, our own helplessness is our assurance of safety.

If the child rests in peace in the home of its earthly parents, and feels secure from every fear and consoled for every sorrow when protected by a father's arm, or nestling at a mother's heart, much more may we all, the children of our Father in heaven, feel security and peace in Him, the heaven of whose presence fills all space, and to whom the devout soul never directs the prayer in vain. In the loneliest hour of grief, the memory of the Saviour's words rising in the soul, may fill us with his own peace: "I am not alone, because the Father is with me."+ We are all taught with him to look up to heaven and say, OUR Father. If we be conscious of the sublime privilege thus awarded us, if we feel that we are indeed His children, and seek to act as such, then we must also feel that no evil can befal us. Our Father is the Almighty, Everlasting God, "of

;

whom and through whom and to whom are all things ;"* and no power can take us out of His hand. Our home is the universe for we cannot go where He is not; nothing can snatch us out of His presence. As the one boundless ocean compasses all the continents and islands of the earth,-as the air we breathe lies close around the whole globe, clasping the loftiest mountains and the lowliest valleys alike, and penetrating even to the most hidden recesses,- so is the presence of the invisible God constant and universal. The words of the Psalmist, uttered of old, are as true now as then; in this world and in all worlds, they are the finite expression of an infinite truth: "Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me." Well might the Psalmist say, "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it."+ But we, fellow-christians, have had that knowledge yet more divinely revealed to us. We have seen how it has been attained by him who came to shew us the Father. Under his guidance we find here the most consoling and sublime truth, which opens to our view visions of that glory which shall be revealed. "Whither shall I go from Thy spirit, or whither shall I flee from Thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, Thou are there; if I make my bed in the grave, behold Thou art there."+

Severance by time and space does not disunite a family on earth, when they are truly united in the bonds of affection. The mother does not forget her child, though continents and oceans may divide them. The child's home remains its home through all the changes of after life. Nothing can sever the ties by which the members of a truly united family circle are bound together.

The parent's love has been used to image forth to us, and make appreciable by our limited faculties, the love of God for His human offspring. Man, we learn, has been created in the

* Rom. xi. 36.

+Psalm cxxxix. 3—6.

Vers. 7, 8.

image of God; how, we first clearly see in Jesus. Glimpses of the sublime truth now and then flash across our souls enlightening the darkness of our ignorance. The whole truth itself, in its transcendent glory, is beyond the grasp of our weak and limited faculties. But those flashes of heavenly truth cheer and guide our faith and hope, and give us divine assurance that they are not vain.

Can we conceive it possible that, if the bonds of affection which unite human parents with their offspring are so hard to be severed, anything can cut off those whom He has created and called His children from the loving and watchful parental care of the Almighty, All-seeing God, who has permitted us to draw near to Him as our Father? "Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee," saith the Lord.

Our trust is not in ourselves, but in God who raiseth the dead. When darkness and sorrow come upon us, when we are called to part on the threshold of the tomb, we must strengthen ourselves with the thought of our own weakness and helplessness, with the thought that we are not the arbiters of our own destiny, but the helpless children of an Almighty Father, whose power and wisdom and goodness ordain all things well. It is only in our limited time-view that the darkness can appear desolate. The darkness and the light are both alike to God. It is only in the temporary and changing circumstances of our earthly life that affliction and woe can lie heavy on our souls. The apostle, whose words come with the power of one who had much experience, said in the full assurance of his faith, "I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."+ And he who was the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, has said, “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." Our trust is in the Infinite God-our God, and our Father-in whom we live and move and have our being.

* Isaiah xlix. 15.

Rom. viii. 18.

Matt. v. 4.

We know that at this present moment it is He who sustains each one of us in life. We know that the living soul which He has breathed into our nostrils, and to which He has given this bodily frame as its temporary dwelling, is supported by Him, and by Him alone. It is not the marvellous fabric of our bodies which constitutes our life. Its support and maintenance, indeed, are given into our keeping, as a condition of our life here; but it is not our life itself. The flesh is but the servant of the spirit, the medium by which it is manifested. And it is of the flesh alone that we have the answer of death in ourselves. When its delicate and complex structure is disordered, and it is no longer capable of performing its functions, it does not therefore involve the spirit in a common death. The Father of our spirits then takes his offspring to Himself, to that heavenly world to which our life in the senses will not permit us yet to rise. But our faith already carries us out of ourselves, and raises us above the present; it assures us, that "whether we live, we live unto the Lord; or whether we die, we die unto the Lord; whether we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord's." "* Jesus himself has told us that God is not the "God of the dead, but of the living; for all live unto Him."+ We are alike His children, He is alike our Father, whether we tarry here on earth, or sleep peacefully in the grave, or rise at once glorified to the kingdom of heaven. Does the mother forget her child when it lies helpless in sleep? Is the slumbering infant unwatched, unguarded and unloved? Does no thoughtful care provide for its awaking? Not less are we, as one by one we are called to lie down to rest and sleep the last sleep when the day of our life draws to its close, —not less are we cared for by the ever-watchful providence of our Father in heaven. Did I say we are alike his children, whether we tarry here on earth or rise glorified to heaven? Is not our birth into this world to us an infinite step out of the nothingness from which we sprung? Our faith assures

*Rom. xiv. 8.

Matt. xxii. 31, 32; Luke xx. 38.