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who thinks that salvation is all that is to be thought of, and who is satisfied with just escaping damnation.

If I go to Europe on a steamship (as I shall not !), my idea of going on a pleasure voyage there, is to make a prosperous passage right straight across, and wake up some morning, and see the crew gathered together on deck, and see the blue line of the land stretched out before us. The sweetest sight that my eye ever rested on was the coast of old Ireland when I first went toward the shores of Europe. The sea was behind me, and the land was before me, and its breath came off to where I was, and I smelt the summer of the soil. I never knew how good it was before. And I went up the channel, clear round to Liverpool, rejoicing at every head-land and sail, and entered the harbor and cast anchor triumphantly. So one wants to make a voyage. But if, in making a voyage, one founders off the coast, and the ship goes down, and other passengers go down, and he swims for his life, and is caught up by a fisherman's boat, half spent and almost insensible, and is brought into some squalid fishing station, and is restored to life again, and wakes up to the consciousness that he has had a little bad brandy poured into his mouth, and in his bewilderment asks, "Where am I?" and is told that he is in "la belle France," he says, "Well, it is better to have landed here under these circumstances than not to have landed at all; but it is not exactly as I expected that it would be."

Now, a great many men come to feel about so in regard to getting to heaven. If at last they can be pulled in, so that when the gate is shut they are inside, that is all they care about. If they can get in somehow they will be satisfied. It is a base, selfish, animal desire, just to wish to be rid of pain. There is no inspiration in it. There is no nobleness in it. There is in it no sense of what it is to be a son of God.

Now, I look forward to the other life, and to dying, not as to the putting a screen between me and every possible danger. It is that, and I appreciate it in this lower sense; but it is also that I am to be in the general assembly of the church of the first-born; it is that I am to come into blessed

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acquaintanceship and fellowship with the noblest men who have lived on the earth since it had an existence; it is that I am to go where is Father, where is Jesus my elder Brother; it is that I am to be in the presence of the nobility of the universe; it is that I am to stand in that glorious company where my children shall see me, and your children shall see you. My father and mother are there, and your father and mother are there. My brethren and companions are there, and so are yours. A great company from out of this church are there; and how much purer and more worthy of being remembered with a burning memory of love and sympathy are they now than when they were in our midst ! Do you believe in the communion of the saints? Do you believe that the saints above are in sympathy with the great multitude of saints that are on earth? Do you believe that because they have gone out of sight they are lost? Do you think, because they have risen to a spiritual realization of the eternal sphere, that they are no more yours? The sound, the noise, the uproar, of this life is but the world's hand that beats time to us as we are moving on toward the real life, and the real heaven, where God brings together those who are fit to live in all the elective affinities of a true spiritual manhood.

Christian brethren, tear away the crape from your doors. Take the black off from your persons. Look cheerfully upon death. Make the tomb bright and beautiful. All the steps which lead to it are full of hope.

When men know that they are coming to riches, the tokens of increasing abundance do not distress them; and why are you distressed because your hair is white? Why do you mourn because your eyesight is failing? Why are you made unhappy because your hand begins to shake? Why do you lament because old age is creeping upon you? These signs of infirmity all betoken your approach to the blessed land above.

How can the chestnut drop its fruit unless the burr in some way is made to open? And so the frost bites the burr, and lets out the nut, that it may come to life again. And how shall we be liberated from the restrictions and hindrances

of this life if there is not something to open the burr and let out the spirit?

These tokens of decadence in us, if we read them in the light of the higher life, are but the approaching steps of deliverance.

A man that for twenty years has been endungeoned, under the old government of Rome, to-morrow is to see the light of day. All night he cannot sleep, for thinking how the world will look to him. In the morning, afar off his ear detects the sound of tramping in the court-yard, and hears some gate creak and crash back, and the key turn in the rusty lock. Nearer, he hears the long unused bolt of some huge door, with much pains pulled back, and the iron clashing which is caused by opening and shutting it. Now he hears voices; and they come nearer; and at last the key is put into the door of his own cell, and it turns in the lock, and the bolt falls back, and the jailor comes in with his companions, bringing a rescript of liberty, and all the implements by which his chains shall be taken off. And does a man sit and cower and cry and shrink because he is being liberated, as you do lest death shall set you free?

All these tokens of approaching dissolution are to be hailed with joy by those who believe that Christ, who rose from the dead, will bring us, by a glorious resurrection, from the dead, and that this resurrection is not a resurrection of the body (flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God), but that it is a resurrection of the spirit, by which the soul shall be lifted out of these earthly training conditions, and brought into a state of freedom; so that turning whichever way you may, in all the universe of God, you shall meet not one stranger, and shall hear voices sweeter than any music on earth, and the heart shall say, “I am no longer a stranger or a foreigner; I am with God, and Christ, and the good men of every age, my parents and children, and companions all;" and the thought wreathes itself as fragrance about me; and I say, "Why did I fear and push from me. the beatitude and blessedness of my real life?"

O aged matron! rejoice in your growing infirmities; the jailor is drawing nearer and nearer to let you out. O vener

able father tremble on, and rejoice that the way is almost passed over, and that every one of the infirmities of this life shall be left behind, and that your manhood shall be as enduring as the throne of God. O child, fear not to go.

Fear not, maiden, to depart. The joys that you leave behind you, compared to the joys to which you go, are as the poor flowers of the wilderness compared with the flowers that blossom in a garden.

And when those have gone out of life who were dear to you, do not look upon death timidly, or as a man of unfaith looks upon it, with blank despair. Remember that you have sent your children and friends into the relationships and plenitude of love, where all shall be one in Christ Jesus, blessed and blessing forever.

PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON.

THOU dost not wait, our Father, for our petitions. It is not for thy sake that we draw near and pray to thee, but for our own. We are glad that thou art patient to listen and willing that we should draw near to thee. That thou shouldst desire it is because thou art a Father; and we know how fathers feel toward their children. Even with their imperfections and faults, how does their love bathe them, and clothe them, and perfect them! And in thy sight we can only stand approved in the atmosphere and prophecy of thy love-in that which we are, and are to be, through thy grace.

We

So we draw near in prayer, not in a meager, poverty-stricken way, as if we were beggars, and as though thou neededst to be persuaded and informed: we come knowing how generous thou art, how affluent thou art, and knowing that such a nature as thine, of sympathy and perfection, stands quick and ready to pour forth blessings. rejoice that even in the asking we are supplied and over-supplied, not alone in the things which we ask, if they be possible, but in other things multitudinous. We rejoice, O Lord, that thy gifts are so plentiful and so wonderful in their variety. If, being sick, we sigh for the wind to blow that it may cool our cheek, blowing, it also lifts the leaves, wafts fragrance through the air, and cheers a thousand others; bringing a multitude of mercies that are not thought of; and so the breath which thou dost breathe upon our souls bringeth not alone what we ask, but innumerable other things. Sitting central as thou dost in the midst of all divine influences, and pouring forth life everywhere, how canst thou turn thyself every whither, and bestow thy grace upon all! We rejoice in thy sovereignty. We rejoice in tho creativeness of thy love. We rejoice that we are all called to thee not to be ranked among animals. We rejoice that there is that in us which reaches far above the flesh into the unknown, and touches God, and is touched by him, and is yet to be fashioned into the divine likeness perfectly, as now it is rudely and imperfectly. And in this hope we desire to live above the world while we are in it, and are using it, and are seeking another and a better land. We pray that we may live in ennobling thoughts of thee, and labor for the working of thy Spirit, and thy divine love in every soul. Cleanse us, we pray thee, from pride and vanity, and all hindering passions; from all outward faults; from temptations that overtake us; from easily besetting sins; from habits imperfectly controlled. Grant that we may become free in Christ Jesus, and turn sensitively toward things which are good, and with an irresistible attraction towards thee. and away from things that are dark and sluggish, and cold and hateful, sin-bred and filled with misery.

We pray, O Lord, that thou wilt draw near, this morning, to those in thy presence who need thee by reason of any special dealings of thy providence with them. Are they children of joy by reason of the overflowing of thy goodness? Then may their joy lift them up, and not make them selfish. May the prosperity of those who, this morning, rejoice in alertness of spirit and good cheer be consecrated in

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