mony, through type and symbol, through theologic treatise and verbal memorizing of the catechism: they saw him as the patient sees the physician; as the lamb sees the Eastern shepherd when it lies in the folds of his vestment: they saw him as the uplifted eye of love sees the face of answering love above it; and seeing this, doubt being unknown in the perfection of their faith, fear being cast out by the perfectness of their love, they closed their eyes as flowers close at the setting of the sun, and gently "fell on sleep."

---

And now, you who have followed me with patience, only dimly catching at the thought, perhaps, for I have found it impossible to bring my thought out, and make the division-line of its varied shadings distinct and true, - you who have dimly caught, I say, at what I meant, and seen the bright, glad world of faith and love which I have not revealed, but only suggested, a world of love for the most lovely, of faith in the most faithful, of joy in Him who was once most sorrowful, but is now most blessed,-make your relation to the Saviour a personal one. Let him, in all your thought, be near and dear to you. You know what he expects. Such love as his for you always expects much. If you love father or mother more than him, you are not worthy of him. Remember that love has but one line or rule in giving it is that by which it receives. And nobler, purer, sweeter (I will not say more lasting, for both shall live forever), but tenderer and more fervid, than love of father and mother, has been, and is, Christ's

love for you. Are you sick?- his eyes shall keep their watching when the mother's, through weariness, close in sleep. Are you shut out from counsel? — go to a love that respects all human secrets, and a wisdom competent to guide. Are you heavy-hearted, weighed down, oppressed? - "Come unto me," he says, "and I will give you rest." Have you found your ignorance by erring, and your weakness by many a fall?go to Him who knows your frame, and remembers that you are dust. Have you sinned?-go to a mercy whose forgiveness a thief receives, and a murderer cannot exhaust. If, on the other hand, you are happy; if any thing sweet and fragrant has come to you; if your soul has been enriched by what man could not give; if you have any thing so precious to you, that it connects both worlds, puts one in communication with the other, and makes both blessed, then take it as coming direct from Him, warm and sweet with the recent touch of his all-bestowing palm. Oh that the glory and warmth of the orient might be seen and felt in our western sky! Oh that the majesty of the palm, emblem of stateliness in growth, and of victory when strewn, and the wealth of the pomegranate, and the rich beauty of the Eastern lilies, might be again suggested to her poets when they sing of the Church! How shall we call her more the Bride of Christ, when so much of speculation, and so little of love, is in her bosom? When will the old rich glow come back to her features, the full pulse to her veins, and all that life of personal affection for her Lord which filled her mouth with songs

when at her work, and made her faithfulness unto death a wonder to those that could not comprehend, and hated the love that made infidelity impossible, and martyrdom a joy? I know not; but this I know, that this will never be until the personal relation between each disciple and Christ be taught, felt, and ardently believed.

O Love! thy feet are beautiful upon the mountains and in the highways of human life. Thy face is lovely on the throne, and not less lovely at the peasant's humble door. A house with thee becomes a home; and a dungeon, if thou art in it, is not utterly desolate. Thy worth is known by those who have thee; and by those who have thee not art thou esteemed. Beautiful art thou at the marriage-feast, with mirth and laughter, the voluptuous swell of music, and in rooms whose slumberous air is heavy with the scent of orange-flowers; beautiful, also, art thou in chambers of happy birth, when motherhood is born with the first-born's breath, and she who giveth birth is born again; beautiful, too, as we can testify, when on thy knees beside the dying-couch, with clasped hands and flooded eyes, thou givest thy farewell kiss to lips that nevermore will give the answering kiss this side of heaven: but never art thou so much thyself, never so gracious, so like thy Father, as when thou dost unite in an eternal bond the heart of sinful man unto his God. Come then, to all this people, in thy most beautiful shape, clothed like a vestal, and supremely pure; breathe out thy breath upon us; quicken each holy sense; create in us the

deathless yearning, the undying faith, the changeless hope for by thy power alone will Christ, revealed, experienced, as love by love, be formed in us, "the hope of glory."

SERMON.

AS

SUBJECT. DEATH A GAIN.

"TO DIE IS GAIN."-Phil. i. 21.

S a strain of music, mellowed by distance and the moist evening-air in summer through which it passes, and which it fills until the darkness beats with the melody, dies out, and is not heard for a while, but anon is heard again, as one sees a ship far off at sea, a little speck of sound, which comes swiftly on and enlarges itself until it moves along the air in majestic resonance; so has it been with me touching this theme, the gain of dying. It came to me like music, grave, solemn, and sweet, with here and there a lively, quick-running, exultant tone, as when the player in the midst of some majestic movement of the lower chords flashes his hand along the higher keys. It came, and died away; and I have waited vainly until now to hear the dying in some rising strain. At last it comes. I catch the well-known chord again, the same sublime, upheaving movement of thought, of hope, of impulse: and as the eagle about to soar seeks and finds and puts himself upon a column of