Psalms 116

I think, suffice to put the reader on his guard against a precipitate fastening on them of a meaning which would exclude the hope of eternal life. It goes far to show that what the Psalmist deprecates is not death simply considered, but premature death. Their prayer is, “O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days” (Psalm 102 : 24). And I do not hesitate to say that there are men so placed in stations of eminent usefulness that it is their duty to make the prayer their own. W. Binnie.

1. I LOVE the LORD, because he hath heard My voice and my supplications. 2 Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, Therefore will I call upon him as long as I live. 3 The cords of death compassed me, And the pains of Sheol gat hold upon me : I found trouble and sorrow. 4 Then called I upon the name of the LORD ; O LORD, I beseech thee, deliver my soul. 5 Gracious is the LORD, and righteous ; Yea, our God is merciful. 6 The LORD preserveth the simple : I was brought low, and he saved me. 7 Return unto thy rest, O my soul ; For the LORD hath dealt bountifully with thee. 8 For thou hast delivered my soul from death, Mine eyes from tears, And my feet from falling. 9 I will walk before the LORD In the land of the living. 10 I believe, for I will (or, when I) speak : I was greatly afflicted : 11 I said in my alarm, All men are a lie. 12 What shall I render unto the LORD For all his benefits toward me ? 13 I will take the cup of salvation, And call upon the name of the LORD. 14 I will pay my vows unto the LORD, Yea, in the presence of all his people. 15 Precious in the sight of the LORD Is the death of his saints. 16 O LORD, truly I am thy servant : I am thy servant, the son of thine hand- maid ; Thou hast loosed my bonds. 17 I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanks- giving, And will call upon the name of the LORD. 18 I will pay my vows unto the LORD, Yea, in the presence of all his people : 19 In the courts of the LORD’s house, In the midst of thee, O Jerusalem. PRAISE YE THE LORD !

In this Psalm one who has been in peril of death (vs. 3, 9, 15) gives thanks to God with a full heart for the deliverance which has been vouchsafed to him. Beginning with the expression of a love to God called forth by His mercy, the Psalmist then passes in review all God’s goodness, till he feels that it surpasses infinitely not only all his deserts, but all adequate power of acknowledgment (v. 12) ; and he concludes by declaring that, in the most public manner, before the assembled congregation, he will confess how great the debt he owes, and bind himself solemnly to the service of Jehovah. The Psalm is evidence of the truth and depth of the religious life in individuals after the return from the exile ; for there can be little doubt that it must be assigned to that period. Many words and turns of phrases remind us of earlier Psalms, and especially of the Psalms of David. His words must have laid hold in no common degree of the hearts of those who were heirs of his faith, and have sustained them in times of sorrow and suffering; and nothing would be more natural than that later poets should echo his strains, and mingle his words with their own when they poured forth their prayers and praises before God. P.—The Psalm exhibits a power and depth of spiritual life not exceeded in any part of Israelitish history. This has been appreciated in the Christian Church, and has made the Psalm very precious to those who have had like experience of suffering and relief. De Witt.

1,2. All the tenses have an eye to the present, thus: I have loved the Lord and do still love Him, because He not only hears my supplications now, but will hear in all my future life. Because He has bent His ear low to my feeble voice, therefore will I call upon Him in both prayer and praise throughout my days of life. The calling upon God, thought of here, manifestly included praise. This is the grateful utterance of the convalescent who has felt the pains and prostrations of disease, but now looks out once more upon the joys of active life and usefulness. C.

1. I love the Lord.** Love, the true love of God, is the love of His truth, of His holiness, of His whole will; the true love is that which reflects itself in obedience; the true love is that which stirs and purifies the conscience. Vinet.—Love begets love. ‘Tis a flame that communicates itself. They that have much forgiven them, much done for them, much laid out for them, and much laid up for them, will love much. Our love to God is the reflection of His love to us. We love Him because He first loved us. J. Mason.

‘Because He first loved us,’ the effect follows that we love, we love Him, we love all men. We cannot help it. Because He loved us, we love, we love everybody. Our heart is slowly changed. Contemplate the love of Christ, and you will love. Stand before that mirror, reflect Christ’s character, and you will be changed into the same image from tenderness to tenderness. There is no other way. You cannot love to order. You can only look at the lovely object, and fall in love with it, and grow into likeness to it. And so look at this Perfect Character, this Perfect Life. Look at the great Sacrifice as He laid down Himself, all through life, and upon the Cross of Calvary; and you must love Him. And loving Him, you must become like Him. H. Drummond.

We cannot love by commandment, or because we think it duty. There is but one way of loving, and that is to see the lovely. The disciple who loved Jesus was ’the disciple whom Jesus loved.’ Generalize that, and it teaches us that, they love who know that Christ loves them. His Divine and eternal mercy is the foundation of the whole thing. Our love can never be anything else than the echo to His voice of tenderness, than the reflected light upon our hearts of the full glory of His affection. No man loveth God except the man who has first learned that God loves him. We have a Gospel that is worth the preaching when we can come to men with no love in their hearts and say, Listen to this: you have to bring nothing, you are called upon to originate no affection; you have nothing to do but simply to receive the everlasting love of God in Christ His Son, which was without you, which began before you, which flows forth independent of you, which is unchecked by all our sins, which triumphs over all our transgressions, and which will make us—loveless, selfish, hardened, sinful men—soft and tender and full of Divine affection, by the communication of its own self. A. M.

When a man’s prayers are answered, love is the natural result. According to Alexander the text may run, ‘I love because Jehovah hears my voice, my supplications.’ This also is true in the case of every pleading believer. Continual love flows out of daily answers to prayer. S.—It is a striking remark, ascribed to Augustine, that prayer is the measure of love. A remark which implies that those who love much will pray much, and those who pray much will love much. This remark is not more scripturally than philosophically true. It is the nature of love to lead the person who exercises this passion out of himself. His heart is continually attracted toward the beloved object. He naturally and necessarily exercises, in connection with the object of love, the communion of the affections. And this communion of the affections is the essential characteristic, and it may be said, the essence and sum of prayer. In acceptable prayer the soul goes forth to God in various acts of adoration, supplication, thanksgiving, and praise—all of which imply feelings of trust and confidence, and particularly love to Him who is the object of prayer. Accordingly he who loves much cannot help praying much. And on the other hand, when the streams of holy communion with God fail in any considerable degree, it is a sure sign that there is a shallowness and drought in that fountain of love from which they have their source. Anon.

All the graces of the Spirit are stirred and exercised in prayer; and, by exercise, strengthened and increased. Faith, in applying the Divine promises which are the very ground that the soul goes upon to God; Hope looking out to their performance, and Love particularly expressing itself in that sweet converse, and delighting in it as love doth in the company of the person loved. And as the soul delights in freedom of speech with its beloved Lord, so it is continually advanced, and grows by each meeting and conference, beholding the excellency of God, and relishing the pure and sublime pleasures that are in near communion with Him. Looking upon the Father in the face of Christ, and using Him as a Mediator in prayer, it is drawn to further admiration of that bottomless love which found that way of agreement, that new and living way of our access, when all was shut up, and we to have been shut out forever. And then the affectionate expressions of that reflex love, finding that vent in prayer, do kindle higher; and being as it were fanned and blown up, rise to a greater, and higher, and purer flame, and so tend upward the more strongly. Leighton.

He who loves Christ unselfishly is ever in the spirit of communion with Christ, and with all who are dear to Christ. Because he loves Christ he is ready to serve Christ, and is ready to serve those whom Christ makes His own representatives. No matter what he is doing, whether he is at work or at worship, or at recreation, he is in the attitude of readiness for service at the call of Him whom he loves. His communion with his Lord, in this sense of readiness for service, is no more real in one place or in one occupation than in another, even though he recognizes his duty and his privilege to be in one place or in one occupation for the time being, as alone consistent for that time with the service he owes to his Master. Bound to his Lord more closely than a loving mother is bound to her child, or than a loving friend is bound to his friend, the disciple of the Lord Jesus is by this binding love in constant and unfailing communion with Him in whom he lives and moves and has his being. And here, as in no other sphere of being, he who enjoys this spirit of communion may be sure that it is recognized, welcomed, and reciprocated by Him toward whom it is lovingly exercised. This communion is ever intercommunion. S. S. T.

Because He hath heard my supplications. It is the design and manifest working of all our painful experience to purify and strengthen love as the pure element of heaven within us. I know not how to speak of the beauty and resources of that goodness which worketh in us a passion in which we not only resemble perfection, but may go on to possess it. There are limits to our advancement in everything but love. Whatever else we can possess or know is no protection against sorrow and despair, but this sheds a light and a cheering about the heart which no calamity can expel. Out of the greatest distresses it comes a victor, laden with the spoils of every foe. From the dust our bed, and the flesh our prison, it enables us to rise and soar as in a heaven of our own. H. H.

2. David saith: I love the Lord, because He hath granted me that which I supplicated to Him for. But did this grant of what he had asked take him off from asking more? The next words show us what his resolution was upon that grant. “Because He hath inclined His ear unto me, therefore will I call upon Him as long as I live.” Caryl.—A godly man will seek God’s face evermore; he calleth upon God as long as he liveth. Breathing heavenward in prayer is the beginning and ending of his spiritual life upon earth, as we see in Paul and Stephen. Paul begins his life with prayer, and Stephen ends his with it. He never taketh his leave of prayer till he is entering into the place of praise. Prayer is his element; he cannot live without it and communion with God in it. Prayer is the vessel by which he is continually trading into the Holy Land; he sendeth it out fraught with precious graces—faith, hope, love, desire, godly sorrow, and the like—and it cometh home many times richly laden with peace, joy, and increase of faith. Swinnock.

Awe and love combined are perfect adoration, and in that adoration the soul is satisfied, earth is glorified, heaven is in our hearts, and all our human love raised into something more intense and pure when it breathes this air of the Eternal. Prayer is the expression of this adoring love, as necessary to man as the adoring love is necessary; and till awe ceases to exalt the soul, and love to be its food, the soul of man must pray. Men may call prayer an absurdity, deny its work, banish its influence, but nature and God will be too strong for them. These men will glide into the absurdity they laughed at when their heart is passionate with sorrow; and as to banishing its influence, they must banish veneration and love from the heart, and then tear away the heart itself, ere they can banish prayer. Its force is here, within us, here in the depth of our want. S. A. Brooke.

5. The Lord is gracious in hearing, He is “righteous” in judging, He is “merciful” in pardoning, and how, then, can I doubt of His will to help me? He is righteous to reward according to deserts; He is gracious to reward above deserts; yea, He is merciful to reward without deserts; and how, then, can I doubt of His will to help me? He is gracious, and this shows His bounty; He is righteous, and this shows His justice; yea, He is merciful, and this shows His love; and how, then, can I doubt of His will to help me? If He were not gracious I could not hope He would hear me; if He were not righteous, I could not depend upon His promise; if He were not merciful, I could not expect His pardon. R. Baker.

6. He helped me.** Helped me both to bear the worst and to hope the best; helped me to pray, else desire had failed; helped me to wait, else faith had failed. H.

7. The deliverance vouchsafed in answer to prayer stills the tumult of the soul. The rest is the rest of confidence in God. P.—“Return unto thy rest, O my soul,” to thy rest in calm and cheerful submission to God’s will, delight in His service, satisfaction in His presence, and joy in communion begun with Him here below which is to be perfected above in its full fruition. Holy souls rest in God and in His will; in Himself as their God, their portion, and their chief good, in whom they shall have all that they can need, or are capable of enjoying to complete their blessedness forever. D. Wilcox.

Satisfied that he owes his deliverance to God, the Psalmist encourages his own soul to be tranquil once more. Thou hast been disturbed with the sorrows of death, and thy rest has been rudely broken. But God hath delivered thee, return unto thy rest, O my soul. We cannot doubt where that soul’s point of rest would be found. It simply goes back to God who has dealt bountifully and rests in Him. Rests lovingly; “I love the Lord because He hath heard my voice.” Rests obediently; “I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.” Rests adoringly; “I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord.” Rests thankfully; “I will offer to Thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving.” Rests believingly; “I believed, therefore have I spoken.” God is to that soul the permanent centre of love, obedience, adoration, thanksgiving, and faith. A religion in which God is not the rest of the soul, in which God is not the fixed foundation of joy, the goal of hope, the prime impulse to duty, the supreme source of comfort and wisdom, is a contradiction of terms. “Religion is the maintenance of a real relation with the personal God, or with a Divine Person really incarnate in

Jesus Christ. Accordingly religion, both Jewish and Christian, is described as a covenant; it is a bond or understanding between the nation or the soul and God; or, still more, it is personal communion with God. ‘That which we have seen and heard,’ says John, ‘declare we unto you, that ye also may have communion with us; and truly our communion is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.’” (Whittier.) This is the very spirit of this verse. The Psalmist exhorts his soul to return unto its rest; not because it has heard of God, or has seen His power in nature; not because he recognizes Divine order in the universe, not because his poetical feeling is kindled by the thought of Divine majesty and glory, but because he has had personal dealings with God. That this point of rest may be clearly, sharply defined to us, God presents Himself in Christ as the soul’s rest. In Christ He stands, saying to a restless world, “Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” The Incarnate Rest comes down to man. The God of rest becomes man, and the life and the words of the Son of Man are a thousandfold echo of the words, “Return unto thy rest, O my soul.” V.

The rest of which the text speaks is the rest of a being who has found his proper and congenial sphere. In reconciliation to God through Jesus Christ the soul finds the centre of repose for which it had been sighing in vain. “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden,” is the invitation of Incarnate Love, “and I will give you rest.” And in the soul that yields to this invitation there rises the response of its deepest nature, the instinctive throb of a new yet natural affection, the calm sense of existence fulfilled and unexplained hope and desire solved in fruition, the witness in its own inmost consciousness that its true rest is found at last. This rest is attainable through Christ alone. “No man cometh unto the Father but by Him.” He offers pardon to the guilty, purity to the defiled, peace, joy, hope, heaven to the wretched, or that which includes them all, that strange, unearthly blessing, rest, to the weary and heavy-laden soul. Caird.

8. For Thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling. The triune God has given us a trinity of deliverances; our life has been spared from the grave, our heart has been uplifted from its griefs, and our course in life has been preserved from dishonor. Salvation, joy, and holiness must go together, and they are all provided for us in the covenant of grace. Death is vanquished, tears are dried, and fears are banished when the Lord is near. S.

9. He that rests in God cannot but walk before Him, and by walking before, we come to rest in God. Returning to rest is an act of confidence, since there is no rest to be had but in God, nor in God but by believing reliance on Him. Walking before God is an act of obedience; when we disobey we wander and go astray, only by obedience we walk. Now these two are companions and ever go together; confidence being a means to quicken obedience, and obedience to strengthen confidence. N. Hardu

10. I believed, for (thus) I speak. I must have exercised faith, or I could not thus have spoken. The Septuagint version, retained in the New Testament (2 Cor. 4 : 13), clothes the same essential meaning in a different form, I believed, therefore have I spoken. It was because his faith enabled him to speak, so that his speaking was a proof of faith. A.—I have retained faith when I spoke. D.—I have faith when I speak. The former of these verbs is in the perfect tense, which indicates firmly established and permanent confidence, in distinction from transient emotion. Literally, I believe when I speak. The second verb in the imperfect tense expresses a passing present, with reference to what he is now saying about the goodness of Jehovah in his great trouble. The emphatic pronoun I in v. 10 and repeated in v. 11, is in both cases in apposition to the subject of the preceding verbs, and that both clauses are virtually relative, giving a reason for his confidence. He learned to trust God’s faithful grace, not from the testimony of others, but from his own personal experience of anguish and sorrow, as described in vs. 3, 4. In his danger and alarm he had looked to men for sympathy and aid, and had to testify that all their promises were falsehood. The contrast between man’s treachery and God’s faithfulness as thus personally tested and attested is very striking, and would be much less effective in the absence of the emphatic pronoun. De Witt.

The Psalmist declares that he stays himself upon God (“I believe”), for he had looked to himself, and there had seen nothing but weakness; he had looked to other men, and found them all deceitful, treacherous as a broken reed. P.

Faith is the only good reason for religious speech. The difference between belief and faith is only this: By the former we hold the truth; by the latter it holds us. The former has no determining influence on the character, but faith, in proportion as it is real, commands the entire life. The truths we hold are grand and awful enough to sweep every thought, affection, and purpose before them. We believe glorious and dreadful things, so glorious, so dreadful, the world could not resist a life that would faithfully reproduce them. Let us hide the Word of God in our hearts till it melts into our experience, till it reappears in new forms in our prayers, our actions, the tenor of our lives, and then we will understand that the depth of our faith measures the breadth of our influence. Interior.

A higher tone of spiritual life would prove that the Gospel was mighty to mould and ennoble character. If our own souls were gleaming with the glory of God, men would believe that we had met more than the shadow of our own personality in the secret place. If the fire of faith were bright in us, it would communicate itself to others, for nothing is so contagious as earnestness. If we believed, and therefore spoke, the accent of conviction in our tones would carry them deep into some hearts. If we would trust Christ’s cross to stand firm without our stays, and, arguing less about it, would seldom try to prop it, and oftener to point to it, it would draw men to it. A. M.

11. I said in my terror, All mankind (are) false. The form of expression in the first clause is borrowed from Psalm 31 : 22. But instead of being a confession of error it is here rather a profession of faith. Even in the midst of his excitement, terror, panic, he could turn away from all human aid and trust in God alone. The proposition, all mankind are false, i.e., not to be trusted or relied upon, implies as its complement or converse, therefore God alone is to be trusted.

12. How shall I requite to Jehovah all His bestowments upon me? Between this verse and that before it, we must supply the thought that his faith was rewarded and justified by the event. This is indeed implied in the interrogation now before us. A.

What shall I render? Love and thankfulness are easily resolved into each other. He begins with, “I love the Lord, because He hath heard my voice;” and to enkindle this grace into a greater flame he records the mercies of God in some following verses; which done, then he is in the right mood for praise, and cries: “What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits?” Gurnall.—What reward shall we give unto the Lord for all the benefits He hath bestowed? From non-existence He waked us into being; He ennobled us with understanding; He taught us arts to promote the means of life; He commanded the prolific earth to yield its nurture; He bade the animals to own us as their lords. For us the rains descend; for us the sun sheddeth abroad its creative beams; the mountains rise, the valleys bloom. For us the rivers flow; for us the fountains murmur; the sea opens its bosom to admit our commerce; the earth exhausts its stores; each new object presents a new enjoyment; all nature pouring her treasures at our feet, through the bounteous grace of Him who wills that all be ours. Basil.

No one will affirm that the manna was the less bountiful proof of the care of God, because, in order to suit the convenience of the Israelites, it did not fall irregularly, but at periodical intervals, and was gathered every morning, that those who partook of it might be strengthened for the journey of the day. And will any one maintain that our daily food is less the gift of God because it is sent not at random, but in appointed ways and at certain seasons, that we may be prepared to receive it? Does it not appear as if it were the very frequency of the gift, and the regularity of its coming which lead mankind to forget the Giver? M’ Cosh.

We owe more to God for redeeming us than for making us; His Word made us; but when He came to redeem us that Word must be made flesh, and that flesh must suffer. In our creation He gave us ourselves, but in our redemption He gave us Himself; and, by giving Himself for us, gave us ourselves again, that were lost; so that we are ourselves, and all that we have, twice told; and now, what shall we give unto thee, O thou Preserver of men, for ourselves thus given and redeemed? If we could give ourselves a thousand times over, yet what are we to God? And yet, if we do give ourselves to Him and His service, such as we are, and such as we can, He accepts it, and will reward it. I will never grudge God His own. I have nothing that is not His; and if I give it to Him, He will restore it again with interest; never any man was a loser by God. Bishop Henshaw.

We honor God most, we make the fittest requital to Him for His benefits, not by giving to Him, but by receiving from Him. Love wants no return for what it gives or does. God does not show favors in order to receive as much again. He gives because His heart is full of love, because He yearns to bless us. The only requital He wants is the glad acceptance of what He offers. He wants only love in return. Consecration? Yes, but the consecration of love, and not as recompense or repayment. J. R. M.—If we sought to give back some actual return, what should it be which is ours to give or withhold, and not already His? But we can gratify the Divine heart with thanksgiving and praise. With nothing but the gifts we have received there is still the fulness of a loving and thankful spirit we can offer as ours. We can feel, we can speak our gratitude. We can bring and lay at God’s feet, as a free-will offering, that which shall swell the volume of the Divine emotions and minister to the blessedness of the Infinite mind—our poor but honest and hearty thanks. . . . Praise should be a larger element in all our worship, public, social, domestic, and private. We should habitually call to each other in those triumphal chants of Israel’s royal harper: “Oh, come, let us sing unto the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto Him with Psalms!” A. L. Stone

13. The apostle styleth the sacramental cup the cup of blessing. Here the prophet useth the plural number, thus: “Cup of salvations,” whereby, after the Hebrew elegancy, he meaneth many deliverances, one after another; or some great and extraordinary deliverance which was instead of many, or which comprised many under it. W. Gouge.—Upon the table of infinite love stands the cup full of blessing; it is ours by faith to take and partake of it, and then with joyful hearts to laud and magnify the gracious One who has filled it for our sakes that we may drink and be refreshed. We can do this figuratively at the sacramental table, we can do it spiritually every time we grasp the chalice of the covenant, realizing the fulness of blessing which it contains, and by faith receiving its Divine contents into our inmost soul. S.

We honor God by taking the full cup of salvation which He commends to our lips, and by calling, while we drink, upon the name of the Lord. Our true response to His Word, which is essentially a proffer of blessing to us, is to open our hearts to receive, and, receiving, to render grateful acknowledgment. The echo of love which gives and forgives is love which accepts and thanks. We have but to lift up our empty and impure hands, opened wide to receive the gift which He lays in them, and though they be empty and impure, yet “the lifting up of our hands is as the evening sacrifice;” our sense of need stands in the place of all offerings. The stained thankfulness of our poor hearts is accepted by Him who inhabiteth the praises of eternity, and yet delights in the praises of Israel. He bends from heaven to give, and all He asks is that we should take. He only seeks our thankfulness, but He does seek it. And wherever His grace is discerned and His love is welcomed, there praise breaks forth. A. M.

15. Precious in the eyes of Jehovah (is) the death of His gracious ones (or saints). In Psalm 72 : 14 the same thing is said of their blood. The word for death has the same peculiarity of form as that for presence in v. 14, and is construed in the same way with the preposition to, the death to His saints, i.e., the death belonging to them, which they die. A.

When we have done that we came for it is time for us to be gone. This earth is only made for action, not for fruition ; the services of God’s children should be ill-rewarded if they must stay here always. It is our folly that we would have good men live forever, and account it a hard measure that they were. He that lends them to the world owes them a better turn than this earth can pay them. It were injurious to wish that goodness should hinder any man from glory. So is the death of God’s saints precious, that it is certain. Bishop H.—The Lord values the lives of His saints. They shall not die prematurely ; they shall be immortal till their work is done ; and when their time shall come to die, then their deaths shall be precious. The Lord watches over their dying beds, smooths their pillows, sustains their hearts, and receives their souls. Almighty God watches over, and sets a high value upon the holy and useful lives of His people, and will not lightly allow these lives to be abbreviated or destroyed. The circumstances of their death are under His special arrangement. Let the weakest believer among you be quite sure, be " confident of this very thing," that He will never suffer your great enemy to take advantage of anything in the manner of your death to do you spiritual harm. When the saints are dying, the Lord looks upon them, and is merciful unto them. Never does He fail to support by the whispers of His love, by the witness of His Spirit, by the assurance of His presence, by the preparatory revelation of heavenly glory. W. M. Bunting.

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints ; precious and also beautiful. It is to them the most blessed of experiences. They are never so well situated to glorify God as in their dying hours. Then they can display the tenderness of His care, the truth of His promises, the supports of His everlasting love, as they can in no other circumstances. While the eye of the body is closing to the beauties of earth, the eye of the soul is opening to the glories that are to be revealed in them ; while their hold of all that life holds dear is relaxing, they cling with a firmer grasp of faith, and a closer embrace of love, to the things that are unseen and eternal in the heavens ; while the outward man perishes, the inward man is renewed more and more. The day of their death is indeed better than the day of their birth, for, rich with all their treasures of spiritual knowledge and experience, the growth and accumulation of a whole lifetime of discipline, they come to their last hour like the mellow fruit that gathers into itself all the life of the tree, and all the dew and sunshine of summer, and at last bends and breaks the branch from which it hangs. Macmillan.

In nature’s final hour, though the work of human friendship is over, there is another Friend who is busy, and another work which is going rapidly forward in that hushed and shadowy room. With busy but noiseless process the Comforter is giving the last finish to the sanctifying work, and making the heir of glory meet for home, till, at signal given, the portal opens, and even the numb body feels the burst of blessedness as the rigid features smile and say, " I see Jesus," then leave the vision pictured on the pale but placid brow. Hamilton.

If there is on earth a spot where His covenant mercies are especially shown, it is the dying chamber. There, when friends have fallen back because they cannot help ; when earthly sights have failed before the glassy eye ; when earthly sounds, even of devotion and love, have ceased to reach the ear ; when the soul almost free from the body is already forsaken of all that is created, a gentle, well-remembered whisper is saying to the inward sense, " I will never, never leave thee ; I will never, never, never forsake thee." And the accomplishment of all is just at the door ; for when the last breath is wasted that spirit, nearer to God than ever before, is rapt forever in the embrace of love, no more to fear, to sorrow, or to sin. Oh, ye who have no God, and who know ye are afraid to die, it is worth your instant labor and importunate prayer ; it is worth toils and sufferings of a lifetime to be prepared for such a departure. This, indeed, is vast and glorious ; but is this all ? Does God conduct His beloved child to the gate of bliss, and then cancel His promise, and abandon it ? Oh, no ! All that precedes is but a single momentary breath before a lifetime. We have arrived at the true birth of the soul. Now it emerges into tracts of endless expansion, where there is no danger, because there is no evil. Perfect holiness is perfect bliss, and both are increasing forever. Now the union of the soul with God, often sighed for, is consummated ; and so shall they " be ever with the Lord." J. W. A.

See the yearning love of kindred, the meek humility, the loss of self, the confession of unworthiness, the patient waiting for release, the whispered promises of the New Testament, the lips too faint to speak still moving in prayer, the clear smile and upward look when the glories of the other world begin to shine out and take form as the veil grows thin, the calm parting with the best beloved, the visible light on the face when the name of the Saviour is spoken; the simple phrases, “Christ is all,” “Come, Lord Jesus,” “Rock of ages, cleft for me,” “I know whom I have believed.” Either there is reality here, a reality of which faith alone is witness, or there is no reality anywhere; and nature, history, the world, and life, and thought, and time, and love, are all a delusion and a dream! So have the true believers overcome. F. D. H.

I believe that the souls of such as die in the Lord are blessed, and rest from their labors, and enjoy the sight of God, yet so, as they are in expectation of a further revelation of their glory in the last day. Bacon.—The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness. O grave, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting? The dead child of God has grasped the victory and eluded the sting. Neither sorrow nor sighing any more. We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. The last gasp of earthly air will be followed by the first inspiration of perfect freedom. That is the old doctrine and it is precious. Interior.

We think of death ending; let us rather think of life beginning, and that more abundantly. We think of losing; let us think of gaining. We think of parting; let us thing of meeting. We think of going away; let us think of arriving. And as a voice whispers, “You must go,” let us hear the voice of Jesus saying, “I will come and receive you to Myself.” If Jesus comes for us, we do not go forth alone into a world of darkness. We simply go with Jesus into the world of light. N. Macleod.—Into that immortal life in those realms above we are to pass when we step beyond the limit of life on earth. Not into the dark of death; oh, no! that is the heathen’s fear! into the celestial realms we are to pass if we are Christ’s. We shall hear the voices of heavenly hosts; we shall hear heavenly bells chiming as we enter in; we shall catch the echo of seraphic song; we shall meet our friends; perhaps the little child that went away from us will come out to meet us; we shall see the Master and the disciples, and with them we shall be for evermore. R. S. S.—It is not darkness the Christian goes to at death, for God is light. It is not lonely, for Christ is with him. It is not an unknown country, for Jesus is there; and there the vast company of the just made perfect, who shall be one with Him in the fellowship and blessedness of heaven forever! C. Kingsley.

Christ takes us from sin to sinlessness, from perfect weakness to perfect strength, from restlessness to rest, from faith to sight, from cold prayers to the song that ceases not day nor night, from a world lying in wickedness to the just made perfect in sight of the throne. If Christ cannot, or will not do all this for us, then He is nothing to us, and why do we believe on Him? If He can, and will, to die is pain. Thorold.—We are only “delivered from this body” by the act of dying; and when Christ is with us, this is all that we mean by dying. That part of our nature which believes in Jesus can never die. Sickness cannot dissolve, nor fever waste, nor fracture mutilate thought, fidelity, and love. Stanford.—What have faith, love, aspiration, resignation, fellowship with God to do with death? They cannot be cut through with the stroke that destroys physical life, any more than you can divide a sunbeam with a sword. It unites again, and the impotent edge passes through and has effected nothing. Death can shear asunder many bonds, but that invisible bond that unites my soul to God is of adamant, against which his scythe is turned. Death cannot touch communion, and the consciousness of communion with God is the earnest of the inheritance. A. M.

They that are in God, being united to Him through Christ, can never by any power be separated from Him. Death, that is the great dissolver of all other unions, civil and natural, is so far from untying this, that it consummates it; it conveys the soul into the nearest and fullest enjoyment of God, who is its life, where it shall not need to desire as it were from a distance; it shall then be at the spring-head, and shall be satisfied with His love forever. Leighton.—There are few intimations of the condition of the saints departed, but these few breathe of profound repose, tranquillity whose stillness nothing further can disturb. They are “asleep in Jesus.” The bodies that arose at the crucifixion were “the bodies of the sleeping saints.” They are blessed, “for they rest from their labors.” These are the franchised of Christ and of death; dust has returned to dust that the spirit might return unto God; they have died into His eternal life! Such is the story of the dying saint, such his oblivion of the past; his glory ever growing and gathering for the future! Such is his entrance into a new world, serene and lofty as the heavens spread above the storms, changeless and eternal as the heart of God. W. A. B.

Religion teaches us to cherish our earthly attachments in the hope that they will be perpetuated in heaven. When the fibres of the soul are woven around the beings who reciprocate its love, its prompting is that they be nurtured for a fairer soil beyond the tomb. Thither we may look amid the endearments of earth, and hope for a higher and more blissful consummation in heaven. Here is the crowning beauty of religion, in the social character. The thought of eternity imparts a grandeur and a depth to the affections in their ordinary exercise. In the trials and anxieties of the domestic circle the thought of heaven will communicate serenity and calmness, and drown each gloomy foreboding. And in those dark hours, when the hearth becomes desolate, and the mourners go about the streets, it is that blessed whisper of the Gospel, “We shall go to them, but they shall not return to us,” which assuages the bitterness of grief, and confirms the shattered faith, and inspires the heart with new and holy purposes. Homer.

The Lordship of the risen Christ over the living and the dead provides the only solid and satisfactory assurance of the future reunion and recognition of His followers. The question that rises oftener than any other to the lips of the bereaved touches this point of reunion: Shall I see him again, my brother, my child, my friend? Will the hand that lies there white upon the breast be reached out to me when we meet? Will the eyes of my mother, whose light opened on me with my life, welcome my coming? Each dear and trusted face, by some celestial sense will its mysterious meanings and attractions be felt as they were here,

“Lovelier in heaven’s sweet climate, yet the same?”

He who rose and lives again is the Lord of the living and the dead. They are not two families, but one, because they are all in Him. F. D. H.

By the light of faith a Christian traces his deceased friends into an eternal world. The period of their trial is closed; they have entered into rest, where, sheltered from the storms of life and the dangers of temptation, their happiness is forever fixed and unalterable. Their separation is neither final nor complete. The pious living and the pious dead are still one family, under one Head; and, when He “who is their life shall appear, they shall appear together with Him in glory.” The friendships which have had virtue and religion for their basis will survive all human ties, outlive the habitable globe, and form, in all probability, a principal part of the happiness of the blessed. R. Hall.

We have great cause to think, by many scriptural expressions, that our heavenly union and communion will be nearer and more extensive, and that all the glorified shall know each other. It is a pleasant thought to me, and greatly helps my willingness to die, to think that I shall go to all the holy ones, both Christ, and angels, and pious separate spirits. Many are better than one, and the perfect whole than a sinful part, and the new Jerusalem is the glory of the creation. God has given me a love to all that are holy for their holiness, and a love to the work of love and praise which they continually and perfectly perform; and a love to His celestial habitation, to His glory shining there. My old acquaintance with many a holy person gone to Christ make my thoughts of heaven the more familiar to me. And it is no small encouragement to one that is to enter upon an unseen world, to think that he goes no untrodden path, nor enters into a solitary or singular state, but follows all that have passed by death, from the creation to this day, into endless life. Oh how emboldening to consider that I am to go the same way, and to the same place and state with all the believers and saints that have ever gone before me! I now delightfully converse with my pious friends, in a firm persuasion that I shall converse with them forever; and I take comfort in those that are dead or absent, believing that I shall shortly meet them in heaven, and love them with a heavenly love. Baxter.

The personal tenderness of immemorial attachment shall go along with all spirits, through interminable eras. The redeemed of the earth, known perhaps on all the plains of joy, and at once distinguishable by the specific contour of their celestial forms, shall be companions of eternity. May we not then, while forgetting the imperfections, and the obscurity, and the feebleness, that attach to this present wintry season of the heart, fairly impute to our Christian friendships a value drawn from the treasures of futurity? This at least is certain, how much soever we may err in matters of particular conjecture, that while earth and its ephemeral interests are hastening to oblivion whatever is Divine, whatever partakes of the nature of the immutable attributes of God, must be indestructible, and must grow until it attains perfection. Every article of human knowledge may be deemed untrue sooner than this, “That love is of God,” and “shall never fail.” I. T.

It oftentimes comes that the very tenderest and richest memories of a home are the memories of its sorrows. They are golden chains that bind hearts together in strongest clasp. Then when Christian faith rules in the heart the mementoes of grief and loss become inspirers of new hopes. We are richer for having loved, although we have lost. We are richer, also, for having suffered, if we have suffered with resignation and trust in God. Then we are richer in immortal possessions. Our dead are not lost to us; they have only passed into a higher, fuller, safer life, where they are secure forever from danger and trial, and kept safe, also, for us. J. R. Miller.—The sainted dead shall finish for us the blessed work which they began. They tarried with us, and nurtured a human love; they depart from us, and kindle a Divine. Cease, then, our complaining hearts, and wait in patience the great gathering of souls! Jas. Martineau.

When we can hold our dead in our hearts without pain, we have recovered them. They ascend, as the Lord did, and sit in our thoughts in heavenly places with Him, calm and bright, and the tender grace of a bygone day puts on also the glory of a day to come. That such a day-spring even here can visit the darkest gloom of trial, let not any mourner doubt who believes that Christ has left His own grave empty and that He will come to open ours. Ker.

The dead possess all the consciousness of the living, and much more. We dwell in the suburbs of the eternal city, they are in the kingly metropolis. We are in abasement, they are in the royal chambers of state. We are under clouds, they are in a light so radiant that if it should fall upon us at mid-day, “the earth would seem to suffer an eclipse.” Townsend.

In the deep sorrow and anguish which come when the tender ties of love are severed, and when the heart in its anguish cries out, “What and where are now my beloved ones?” no answer falls on the listening ear of the heart so full of celestial beauty as this: “They are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple; and He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters; and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.” That is the final vision; that is the inevitable, fadeless vision of perfected, long-separated humanity, a new Eden at the end, as Eden was at the beginning of human history. M. D. Hoge.

If the mere conception of the reunion of good men in a future state infused a momentary rapture into the mind of Tully; if an airy speculation—for there is reason to fear it had little hold on his convictions—could inspire him with such delight, what may we be expected to feel who are assured of such an event by the true sayings of God! How should we rejoice in the prospect, the certainty rather, of spending a blissful eternity with those whom we loved on earth; of seeing them emerge from the ruins of the tomb and the deeper ruins of the fall, not only uninjured, but refined and perfected, “with every tear wiped from their eyes,” standing before the throne of God and the Lamb in white robes and palms in their hands, crying with a loud voice, Salvation to God that sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb forever and ever! What delight will it afford to renew the sweet counsel we have taken together, to recount the toils of combat and the labor of the way, and to approach, not the house, but the throne of God in company, in order to join in the symphonies of heavenly voices, and lose ourselves amid the splendor and fruitions of the beatific vision! Robert Hall.

16. O Lord, truly I am Thy servant. Thou hast made me free, and I am impatient to be bound again. Thou hast broken the bonds of sin; now, Lord, bind me with the cords of love. I owe my liberty, my life, and all that I have, or hope, to Thy generous rescue; and now, O my gracious, my Divine Friend and Redeemer, I lay myself and my all at Thy feet. S. Lavington.—If for us duty is joy, and all our soul’s desires flow with an equable motion parallel to the will of God, then there is no sense of restraint in keeping within the limits beyond which we do not seek to go. The willing spirit sets us free, free from the “ancient solitary reign” of the despot self, free from the mob rule of passions and appetites, free from the incubus of evil habits, free from the authority of men’s voices and example. Obedience is freedom to them that have learned to love the lips that command. We are set free that we may serve: “O Lord, truly I am Thy servant; Thou hast loosed my bonds.” We are set free in serving: “I will walk at liberty, for I keep Thy precepts.” A. M.

Great mercies should engage to great obedience. God begins the Decalogue with a memorial of His mercy in bringing the Israelites out of Egypt, “I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt.” How affectionately doth the Psalmist own his relation to God as His servant, when he considers how God had loosed his bonds: “O Lord, truly I am Thy servant; Thou hast loosed my bonds!” When we remember what wages we have from God, we must withal remember that we owe more service and more liveliness in service to Him. When we remember that all we have or are is the gift of God’s liberality, we should think ourselves obliged to honor Him with all that we have, for He is to have honor from all His gifts. It is a sign we aimed at God’s glory in begging mercy, when we also aim at God’s glory in enjoying it. It is a sign that love breathed the remembrance of mercy into our hearts, when at the same time it breathes a resolution into us to improve it. It is not our tongues, but our lives must praise Him. Charnock.

Love’s quality is measured by what it will do, what it will give, what it will suffer. God so loved the world that He gave, gave His only-begotten Son, gave all, withheld nothing. That is the measure of the Divine love for us; it loves to the uttermost. If you are Christ’s, every energy of your mind, every affection of your heart, every power of your soul, every fibre of your body, every particle of your influence, every dollar of your money is Christ’s, and all of these are to be used to bless your fellow-men and to make the world better and happier. If we love, we will give, we will suffer, we will sacrifice. If we would be like God, we must live to minister, giving our life without reserve to service in Christ’s name. J. R. M.

The son of Thine handmaid. David’s design here is to represent his piety as hereditary; and he mentions his mother because to her especially, in all probability, his religious convictions and impressions were instrumentally due. If this were the case, how much does the Church owe, under God, to the kindly wisdom of that godly mother, for it is the mother, after all, that has most to do with the making or the marring of the man. For a mother’s teachings have a marvellous vitality in them; there is a strange, living power in that good seed which is sown by a mother’s hand in her child’s heart in the early dawn of the child’s being; and there is a deathless potency in a mother’s prayers and tears for those whom she has borne, which only God can estimate. W. L. A.

18. It is an inconsiderate and foolish haste of Christians to make more occasions of vowing than God doth make for them. Make your vows and spare not, so often as God bids you; but do not do it oftener. Your extraordinary bond for every ordinary mercy He requires not; He is content with ordinary security of gratitude for ordinary mercies; when He calls for extraordinary security and acknowledgment by giving extraordinary mercies, then give it and do it. Henry Hurst.

In the presence of all His people. Be bold, be bold, ye servants of the Lord, in sounding forth the praises of your God. Wicked men are over-bold in pouring forth their blasphemies to the dishonor of God. Shall they be more audacious to dishonor God, than ye zealous to honor Him? Assuredly Christ will show Himself as forward to confess you, as you are or can be to confess Him. This holy boldness is the ready way to glory. W. Gouge.

That “the Lord buried Moses” assures us Christians of things more clear, tells us that the dust of God’s servants is dear in His sight, and that His hand keeps it safe against the day of the redemption of the body. They may sleep in desert sands or frozen wreaths, in the crowded city or the ocean’s bed, “their ashes may fly no marble tells us whither,” but His eye watches over them as carefully as it did over this grave, which His own hand, in some mysterious way, formed and closed; and He will bring them forth every one when “He writeth up the people.” Ker.—The very dust of Christ’s saints is dear to Him. He guards their very graves with a deeper and tenderer care than that wherewith earthly affection watches over the spot where a loved one rests. Caird—There is no land of forgetfulness. The grave is vital now. It is a region of soft and pleasant slumbers. There is an almighty and an omniscient Watcher over all these sleepers. B. B. E.

The gloom of the grave has been dispelled by the Gospel of our dead and risen Lord. He stands in the place of our beloved. Where He is, they are. What He declares, they would tell us. They speak to us through Him, and if we will but heed the message, our faces will become radiant as we weep. He has made an end of our ignorance, for we know now that death is operative only within and upon the body, incapable of pushing its way into the sanctuary of the soul’s life. It is the scaffolding that collapses; the temple remains, and casts its fair outlines against a clearer sky. And He has made an end of our impotence, because in His own resurrection we have the infallible pledge that even the physical power of death is only temporary. Behrends.

The taking down of thine earthly tabernacle is in order that it may be set up anew, infinitely more lasting, beautiful, and glorious. Didst thou believe how rich and splendid He intends to make it, which cannot be unless taken down, thou wouldst contentedly endure the present toil and trouble, and be thankful to Him for His care and cost. He takes down thy vile body that He may fashion it like to the glorious body of His own Son. Is it the untying of the knot betwixt body and soul which perplexeth thee? It is true they part; but, as friends going two several ways, shake hands till they return from their journey, they are as sure of meeting again as of parting; so thy soul shall return laden with the wealth of heaven and join its old companion in the participation of all its joy and happiness. Swinnock.

One does not, perhaps, fear so much the pains of death as he does the launching out on an unknown sea alone; plunging into darkness, entering into a boundless space where there is nothing tangible, local, or visible, where the soul leaves behind all the warm sympathies of life, all which can communicate with other beings. However fortified by faith, it seems to be a dread experiment. We cling instinctively to some sure support, some familiar surrounding objects. But is it not a thought full of comfort that, to the believer his Redeemer stands at the very threshold of death, the other side of that thin curtain which hides mortality from life; stands there, not as an impalpable vision, but as a dear friend, with His heart overflowing with human sympathies? It is like meeting on a foreign shore our best earthly friend, perfectly familiar with the language and all the objects there, a guide most intelligent, most faithful, who will anticipate every desire, and in whose society we find the sweetest contentment, and the largest accessions of knowledge and delight. B. B. E.

Though you see not the world to come that you are passing to, yet as long as you know that you are in the hands of Love itself, what cause have you of disquiet or distrust? Moreover you know that He is wise as well as good, and almighty as well as wise; and, therefore, as He meaneth you no harm (if you are His children), so He will not mistake nor fail in the performance. You need not fear lest your happiness should miscarry for want of skill in Him that is omniscient, or for want of will in Him that is your Father, or for want of power in Him that is omnipotent. You may far better trust God with your lives than yourselves, for you have not wisdom enough to know what is best for you, nor skill to accomplish it, nor power to go through with it; nay, you love not yourselves so well as God doth love you. Baxter.

Our view of death will not always be alike, but in proportion to the degree in which the Holy Spirit is pleased to communicate His sensible influence. We may anticipate the moment of dissolution with pleasure and desire in the morning, and be ready to shrink from the thought of it before night. But though our frames and perceptions vary, the report of faith concerning it is the same. The Lord usually reserves dying strength for a dying hour. When the time shall arrive which He has appointed for our dismissal, He will overpower all our fears, and give us a comfortable, triumphant entrance into His kingdom. Newton.

Christ Within the Veil.

Jesus is our High-Priest. He has not gone far away, though He has gone to heaven. He is only within the veil (Heb. 6 : 19). And hence we know that heaven itself is very near us. Death is not “a leap in the dark,” or a long journey to some far-off sphere. It is only going through the veil which God draws aside for us. This was Paul’s idea, for he writes of “being absent from the body and present with the Lord,” as if the body itself was the veil, and the moment he was out of it he would see his Lord. If we could realize that Christ is just within the veil, that He is near to us though we cannot see Him, and that death is merely following Him in passing through, that it is the transition of a moment, we would not shrink, as many of us do, from that transition. An eloquent writer says: “A veil is the thinnest and frailest of all conceivable partitions. The veil that hides heaven from our eyes is only our embodied existence, and though fearfully and wonderfully made, it is only wrought out of our frail mortality. In a bound, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, in the throb of a pulse, in the flash of a thought, we may start into disembodied spirits, glide unabashed into the company of great and mighty angels, pass into the light and amazement of eternity, know the great secret, gaze upon splendors which flesh and blood could not sustain, and which no words lawful for men to utter could describe. Brethren, there is but one step between you and what lies behind that curtain; between you and heaven there is but a veil.”

How solemn and yet how interesting is our position in this life, with only a veil between us and heaven! Suppose that we were in the palace of some earthly monarch, that there was a curtain across the apartment in which we stood, that we knew it was transparent to those on the other side, and that the king and all his court were there. They could see all that we did. They could hear all that we said. Any moment the curtain might be drawn aside, and we find ourselves in their midst! Such is our mortal life, and yet how unconcerned we live. Paul writes to the Ephesians about the “whole family in heaven and earth,” and tells them that God has gathered together in one all things in Christ, “both which are in heaven and on earth.” There are not two worlds, but one, with a curtain separating the inhabitants for a time. The kingdom of God is here as truly as it is up there. It is the same temple, though there is a veil between the holy place and the holy of holies. And our High Priest is not only near us in the upper sanctuary, but He is there “for us,” there waiting to welcome us. When the time comes for us to depart, His nail-scarred hand will draw the veil aside, and His voice will say, “Come unto Me. Come and be with Me where I am, that ye may behold My glory.” Interior.

The Thought of Death Salutary and Helpful.

As Christian believers we should cherish the thought of death: as coming, in regard to its time and circumstances, in accordance with the appointment of our loving, heavenly Father; as in itself the personal coming of Jesus to take us unto Himself; as terminating the experience of painful toil, temptation, sin, and grief, and as ushering us into a boundless, endless life of holy activity and joy. This is the direction our thought should take if we would rationally and properly contemplate it. And such thought of death may prove one of the best preparatives for all the events and duties of life. Rightly cherished and justly applied, that thought touches and healthfully affects every possible experience through which we pass. It stimulates to Christian activity, while it instructs us in the wisest, best modes of that action. It perpetually utters in low, deep, earnest tone, “Work while it is called day.” It chastens our too earnest pursuit of things lawful, of this world’s interests, pursuits, and pleasures by reminding us that the “fashion of this world,” all that is connected with the world, passeth away. It checks that proneness to inordinate, immoderate attachment even to the beings whose lot is linked most closely and tenderly to us by the remembrance that the links will all one day be broken. It enables us to hold all the good that God gives us with an easily loosened grasp by bringing into view the richer, better blessings He holds in reserve. It sustains us, too, in trial and adversity; stays us under the little discomforts which wear so constantly and deeply upon us; moderates excessive grief, and enables us to abide patiently under all disquiet and affliction by the soothing assurance that “our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” And it leads us habitually to strive after holiness in heart and life, after an increasing conformity to the Divine character; to seek first and supremely that kingdom which is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, by reminding us that the sublime end of our being is to awake in the perfect likeness of God, to live forever in the unrestrained possession of a kingdom, a fellowship, and service of inconceivable purity, glory, and blessedness. B.

The State of the Blessed Dead. In the first place, it is one of uninterrupted and unclouded personal consciousness. This is involved in the fact of the soul’s essential independence of its mortal body and of its personal immortality; and it is confirmed by our Lord’s assurance to the dying thief that on that very day they would meet in Paradise. Not for one moment, then, is the thread of conscious personal identity broken. The soul is not put to sleep, nor relegated to a dreamy condition, nor thrown into a state of suspended animation. It does not retreat to a second and longer infancy. It is not thrown back upon itself, existing for an indefinite period in a state of ecstasy. It remains in the full possession of all its essential powers. The intellect, the sensibilities, and the will continue in undiminished energy and activity. They are neither diminished nor dormant. The soul carries with it all that it has gained here in knowledge and affection and holy experience. It is not so absorbed in its new pursuits, but there come times of retrospection and reminiscence, when memory floods the heart and moves to prayer and praise. For myself, I doubt not in the least that my sainted mother, whose face vanished from my sight nearly forty years ago, thinks of me and prays for me as really and tenderly as I think of her, though I do not pray for her. And this I must believe, because death neither destroys nor diminishes the power of memory.

In the second place, the mental and spiritual capacities of the sainted dead are greatly enlarged and intensified. They are said to be at rest, with Christ, and in Paradise. They are at rest, because forever freed from the infirmities of their mortal state, delivered from the shackles of a diseased and dying body; without heart-

ache, or headache, or handache. They are with Christ, in a higher fellowship and activity than was their privilege here. There was more power in the one day of Pentecost than in all the thirty-four years of our Lord’s mortal ministry. One hour of Paradise is worth more than a lifetime on earth, though prolonged to fourscore years. Knowledge is clearer and more comprehensive. Love is more intense and holy. Joy is deeper. Activity is more varied and refreshing.