March 13

Acts i. 1. The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus! of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, 2. Until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen: 3. To whom also he showed himself alive after his passion, by many infallible proofs; being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God; 4. And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me. 5. For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence. 6. When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? 7. And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father hath put in his own power. 8. But ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you; and ye shall be

witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judæa, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. 9. And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight. 10. And, while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; 11. Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven. 12. Then returned they unto Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is from Jerusalem a sabbath-day's journey. 13. And, when they were come in, they went up into an upper room, where abode both Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew, James the son of Alpheus, and Simon Zelotes, and Judas the brother of James. 14. These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren.

This bodily ascension of Jesus certified him as the Son of God, and lifted our humanity to a place in heaven. If, after his resurrection, he had silently, mysteriously disappeared, his whole career would have been thrown into doubt by the uncertainty of its end. But the ascension, while it completed the resurrection, answered to the incarnation, and testified that Christ was "the Lord from heaven." It prefigured also the completeness of man's redemption in the glorified body. It was the won Christ Jesus who ascended. He did not vanish like an apparition; he was not spirited away; he rose in his proper body, with his hands stretched out in blessing; he rose from the ground, where he had stood among his disciples, into the air above them; and continued rising until lost to their view. They saw whither he had gone, and stood gazing

steadfastly after him. He carried up with him into heaven his human identity, — "the same Jesus" here and there! And so he carried up us also into heaven; made heaven real to us as an abode, as a place that we can enter, a home where humanity can dwell with God. Every purpose of good that brought him into the world, every tie of sympathy and love that here bound him to our humanity, every promise of redemption that was pledged by his cross, is represented through that body which here was tempted, suffered, died, and rose again, and ascended into glory. With what confidence, then, should our faith look forward to a union with Christ, when he who carried our nature up into heaven shall come "in like manner" to take his beloved to his home!

APPROPRIATE HYMNS.]

Prayer.

[Nos. 34, 74, 80.

Blessed be God, that, in Christ Jesus our Lord, heaven is brought nigh to us as our home; that He who descended and took our nature, and lived and suffered and died in human flesh, hath ascended to heaven, the same Jesus, glorifying our nature in his own! Oh, may we feel the grace of his redemption, the power of his resurrection, the glory of his ascension, the promise of his coming, as motives to draw us from earthly things! and may the exaltation of our Redeemer, as head over all things to his Church, inspire us with faith in the triumph of his Church in the world! Build up thy Church this day; bless her worship, her schools, her teaching; hear her prayers, and manifest thy saving power. Go with us to thine house. Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that like as we do

believe thy only-begotten Son to have ascended into the heavens, so we may also in heart and mind thither ascend, and with him continually dwell; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end.

Thy mercy, O Lord! hath visited us with the refreshing slumbers of the night. As a family we would dedicate ourselves to thee, and supplicate thy grace upon every one of us here present before thee, and upon all the dear ones who are absent from us. And, while we so rejoice in thine abounding goodness, we make supplication for the poor, the needy, the outcast, the oppressed; beseeching thee that the consolations of the gospel may be multiplied to them all, through the grace of our ascended Lord; to whom be glory forever. Amen.