phrase, "He served his own generation by the will of God." The exact meaning of the original would be more clearly presented by a slight change in the translation. It may be rendered, "David, when he had in his own generation served the will of God, fell on sleep." The sense of the passage evidently is, that the life of David was habitually governed by a regard to the Divine will. Distinguished as he was for worldly prosperity and renown, neither wealth, nor fame, nor the honors of royalty, constituted the paramount object of his life. His governing aim was to do the will of God. This practical acknowledgment of God's supremacy was made, as it should be in the case of every individual, early in life. How much earlier we know not, but when a mere stripling, employed in feeding his father's flocks, he was a devout worshipper of God, and a diligent student of his works and Word. In the objects of beauty and grandeur by which he was surrounded; in his own mysterious being, and in the glories of the heavens, he delighted to trace the operations of Jehovah's wisdom, benevolence, and power. His contemplation of God's glorious perfections called forth ascriptions of praise, and of his condescending, discriminating love to him, acts of devout thanksgiving. Even in that inexperienced period of life, when the heart is most liable to be inflated with pride by marks of peculiar honor, he was eminently meek and humble. Though anointed the future king of God's chosen people by a prophet sent to perform the act, neither by that honorable designation, nor the victory which he shortly after achieved over the proud and blaspheming champion of Philistia, by which the eyes of an admiring and grateful nation were fixed upon him, does he seem to have been unduly elated. Even then he had learned what few do with equal thoroughness in scores of years, that "promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south :" that " God is the judge:" that "he putteth down one and setteth up another." In that dark period of his history which succeded the events just mentioned, when the object of Saul's unmerited and mortal hatred, toward his malignant, persecuting sovereign he exhibited great benevolence and signal magnanimity. In circumstances in which the world would have justified and lauded the act as called for in self-defence, repeatedly might he have taken the life of his royal adversary and placed himself upon the throne; but he committed his cause to God, and waited patiently for Him to redress his wrongs, and place the promised crown upon his head. When invested with the honors of royalty, he used them not as instruments of his own pleasure and aggrandizement, but for the promotion of the happiness of his subjects, and the glory of God. Before his family, his courtiers, and his subjects, he acknowedged his ceaseless dependence upon Jehovah, and his obligations for the blessings of his providence and grace. In the law of the Lord he meditated day and night, prized it above" fine gold," and accounted it " sweeter also than honey, and the droppings of honey-comb." Upon the public worship of God, he was a regular and delighted attendant. He esteemed a day in the courts of the Lord better than a thousand devoted to the interests of the present world. Before his subjects, and the idolatrous nations aroud him, he honored Jehovah as the only proper object of religious worship. After he had gained possession of the city of Jerusalem, enlarged and beautified it, and made it the capital of his ' kingdom, he ministered to the will of God by bringing to it the ark, the divinely appointed symbol of Jehovah's presence. This act was accompanied by solemn and appropriate services. A sacred ode, composed for the occasion, of rare poetic merit, and rich in elevated, devout, and grateful sentiment, was sung, accompanied by impressive demonstrations of hely joy. He likewise adopted prompt and energetic measures for the regulation of the courses of the priests and musicians, that the sacrifices might be offered according to the law, and God's praises appropriately celebrated in sacred songs. He also formed the purpose of erecting a magnificent temple to the honor of God, in which he designed to place the ark of the covenant, and in whose hallowed courts the most solemn rites of Divine worship might be performed. This pious purpose God accepted, but conferred the honor of building the temple upon Solomon. Notwithstanding David was denied the honor of rearing the sacred edifice which he had planned, he made vast and expensive preparations for its erection, and charged Solomon, his son, to apply them to the purpose for which they had been made. David's devotion to the service of God, however, did not exhibit itself merely in acts of worship and measures to secure the performance of them by his cotemporaries and succeeding generations. In the various relations which he sustained, and the diversified circumstances of his eventful life, his devotion to the service and glory of God was equally manifest. It was manifest also in his household arrangements in the administration of his government, in his intercourse with other nations, and when called to embattled field. Habitually he acknowledged his dependence upon God, by seeking the guidance of his wisdom, and offering to him his devout thanksgiving for his personal and domestic blessings, and the signal prosperity which marked his reign. Equally prompt and cheerful was he in acknowledging God in seasons of trial and suffering. When the object of Saul's cruel persecution, during the unnatural revolt of his son Absalom, and when reviled and cursed by Shimei, he recognized the hand of God in these deeply afflictive events, and bowed in sweet submission to his will. I am aware that the character of David was not faultless. In numbering his people from motives of ostentation, and especially in the affair relating to Uriah, the conduct of David was highly culpable. Those, however, who make these transgressions the occasion of aspersing his character, and representing him as a vain and immoral man, would do well to remember that he ingenuously confessed and deeply deplored them. Equally does it become them to bear in mind the fact that character is not formed by a few isolated acts, but by a man's prevailing spirit and deportment. Tried by this test, no one qualified to judge will deny that the character of David was formed by a combination of rare excellencies. The general course of his life, and the sacred odes in which he gave utterance to the devout affections of his heart, exhibit a strength of love to God, and zeal for his honor and for the prosperity of his kingdom, which have rarely been equalled. In his generation, he promptly, cheerfully, habitually, and without reserve," served the will of God." In this respect, our deceased father and friend strikingly resembled him. Indeed, his character possessed all the excellencies of the devout psalmist and king of Israel, without his faults. The record of the death of David is what his general character and God's gracious promises would lead us to expect. Ten centuries after he had exchanged his kingdom on earth for one eternal in the heavens, and the crown which adorned his brow below for one of unfading glory above, the unerring pen of inspiration made the record concerning his life and death, "After he had served his own generation by the will of God, he fell on sleep.' What a wonderful description is this of death! From death everything living shrinks back with dread. It mocks at every earthly distinction, breaks asunder the strongest and most endearing ties which nature knows, suspends all the vital functions, transforms our bodies into masses of cold, unconscious clay, and delivers them over to corruption and worms. But to believers in Jesus, death is stripped of its terrors-deprived of his sting. Such is death to them, that it is appropriately denominated sleep. Not, however, in the sense of the advocates either of annihilation or materialism. Believers in the former have no hope beyond the grave, either for themselves or their friends. To their grief under bereavement, death adds the anguish of despair. Blessed be God, the Gospel assures its believers that their kindred, who die in the Lord, have not ceased to exist,-that they only sleep. And the Scriptures give no support to the cheerles theory that the souls of departed saints are unconscious from the death of their bodies till the morning of the resurrection. To the penitent malefactor at his side, our adorable Redeemer, when dying upon the cross, said, "To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise." What but the animating hope that at the death of his body, his soul would immediately enter heaven, made the Apostle Paul so vehemently "desire to depart and be with Christ." He evidently considered absence from the body inseparably connected with the presence of his spirit with the Lord. Everlasting thanks to the God of all comfort and spiritual consolation and joy, for the assurance which he has given us that the sleep of the pious dead is not the sleep of unconsciousness. It is true, indeed,-delightfully true, that the bodies of the saints, vacated by the departure of their deathless souls, do sleep in unconsciousness in the grave. Infirmity, weariness, and pain, shall afflict them no more. It is not on this account merely or chiefly, however, that the oracles of eternal truth affirm of departed saints. "they sleep." The language is descriptive of their safe and happy departure. To them death is devoid of danger. From his approach they have no more to dread than from the repose of the night when the toils of the day are ended. I mean in respect to the spiritual and immortal part of their nature. The panting and agony which often precede and accompany the death of the body, we cannot and ought not to view with indifference. They are among the bitter fruits of our apostacy from God, and ought to be contemplated with dread. But in respect to the souls of believers, death is perfectly innoxious. It is mainly the fear of what lies beyond, which makes it the dread and terror of the ungodly. If their hearts be not fearfully "hardened through the decejfulness of sin, and their consciences seared as with a hot iron," to them death brings fear and dismay. But the Lord Jesus Christ has freed his followers from the power of the cruel spoiler. The blow which prostrates their bodies, releases their souls from the bondage of corruption. They enter into rest,-rest, balmy and refreshing, free from all the cares, labors, disappointments, anxieties and sorrows of the present life, and sin, the parent of all our woes. In this vale of tears, they are frequently the subjects of disappointment, pain, anxiety, and sorrow,-sometimes of almost heartbreaking bereavement. They have, indeed, supports and consolations, which others know not of, but not less-often more frequently than the children of disobedience, their eyes are suffused with tears, their bosoms convulsed with sighs, and their cheeks furrowed with care and grief. And they have conflicts, fears, and sorrows, peculiar to themselves. As soldiers under the Captain of salvation, they are required to watch unto prayer, to strive against sin, and to "fight the good fight of faith." Death brings to them the rest which they need and desire. With their heads pillowed upon the breast of their almighty and most merciful Redeemer, they fall asleep sweetly in him. This thought is thus appropriately and beautifully expressed by a gifted evangelical poetess: "How blest the righteous when he dies,— How gently heaves th' expiring breast! So fades a summer's cloud away; So sinks the gale when storms are o'er; So dies a wave along the shore. A holy quiet reigns around, A calm which life nor death destroys; Such is death to those who die in the Lord. What a powerful antidote to excessive sorrow on account of their removal. ; Another ground of consolation is their condition in and after death. The cruel spoiler sunders every other tie separates friend from friend-pastors from their people, and people from their pastors-parents from their children, and children from their parents-husbands from their wives, and wives from their husbands, but cannot separate believers from their adorable Redeemer. When dead, they are as really united to him as they were while living. Their bodies, it is true must see corruption, but he has pledged his veracity to be the Guardian of their sleeping dust. Their entire persons are his property, so intimately united to him that they are said to be "members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones." Will he then cease to care for the mouldering bodies of his saints? No, never. They sleep in him. And their sleep is to be broken. When he shall return to judge the world in righteousness, he will raise and reorganise their bodies, and make them "like unto his glorious body." All ancient and modern theories to the contrary notwithstanding, his Word no less clearly asserts than it does the fact of his own resurrection, that the bodies of his saints shall be raised glorious and immortal. The apostle, in his masterly defence of this article of the Christian faith, affirms of the body, "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 body." How appropriately, then, is it said of the patriarch David, "he fell on sleep!" To him death brought no peril. That it would not he was himself fully persuaded. In anticipation of his departure from the world, in the exercise of assured hope, he joyfully exclaimed, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me." His soul is now with his Redeemer in glory. In the morning of the resurrection, his body will be raised spiritual and immortal, and his entire person be received into heaven, where |