troubled conscience rest, resolve its gloomy doubts or chase away its guilty fears.

We cannot express the danger of those who neglect the great salvation, and we cannot exceed the description which Scripture gives of the terror of death to such.

HUMANITY'S EMBLEM.

WILLIAM LANDELS, D.D., EDINBURGH.

We all do fade as a leaf.—ISA. lxiv: 6.

NATURE is an emblem of life; a pictorial illustration

of truth. Revelation has truths, nature does not teach, but she does not disdain to notice those of nature, points men to them and employs them for the purpose of illustrating her own higher message. Thus the Bible uses the seasons, as in our text. We all do fade as a leaf."

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I. The text asserts the fact we all must die. It is the doom of man, like the leaf, to wither and decay and mingle with the dust of earth. All the generations of men since Adam have died-only two were translated to give an intimation of another life beyond the grave. The grave has already received men of all ranks, conditions and ages. The decree still remains. The grave has not yet said, "It is enough." There is room still for the living in that "narrow house" of the dead. Room for each of us. Yet the great majority of men practically forget it. This is sadder than the fact that all must die. "Of men's miraculous mistakes this bears the palm; all men think all men mortal but themselves." Unlike the leaves, men drop away at all seasons, one after another-this in part accounts for man's forgetfulness of his mortality. It might be in some re

spects different with him, if like the leaf, he witnessed the inhabitants of a nation swept away in a few months. But sin practices the deception, and tends to cradicate impressions of the solemnity of death and the certainty of dissolution as expressed in the text, "We all fade, &c."

II. The truth of the text should influence the mind. 1. By leading to preparation for death. If the leaf be an emblem of our brief life, if the sentence is irrevocable and unavoidable, "Dust thou art, &c.," if it is "appointed unto man, &c.," we know it; it is nothing less than guilty infatuation, if we neglect to prepare for the solemn event. Moreover, if the time of our duration is still more uncertain than that of the leaf-if while the leaves have their times to fall, "death has all seasons for his own "-in doing the work which is necessary to our dying peace not a moment should be lost. "Die the death of the righteous."

2. The truth that "we all do fade as a leaf," should lead us to moderate our ambition.

Men are generally anxious to acquire wealth, to attain to eminence and to gain the esteem and applause of their neighbors. And the feeling is not sinful except when cherished in excess, so as to interfere with the influences of higher motives and to prevent the pursuit of a higher good. But the meanest work performed with a single eye to God's glory, will be of far more value than all the labors of a life, which has wealth or honor or rank for its end. What is Byron the better for having

"Drank every cup of joy, heard every trump

Of fame; drank early, deeply drank, drank draughts
Which common millions have quenched, then died,
Of thirst, because there was no more to drink?"

3. This truth should lead us to set our affections on heavenly things.

These things of earth must soon be left : friends, home, property, then prepare for and welcome the intimation that you can have an "inheritance incorruptible, &c." Thank God there is a land where there is no seared leaf or tottering frame, where age writes no wrinkles on the brow, no grey hairs exist to tell that the summer of life is past, where there are no violent separations, no death, no sorrow, no pain. The bowers of paradise are always green, its sky always bright, its season is always summer. He who receives the crown of glory will never lay it down, except in adoration at the feet of Him who sits upon the throne. The employment of heaven will never weary him; its song will be always new. The triumphal palm will never wither in his hand, the golden harp will never be out of tune. Nothing will ever choke or narrow that foundation whence life leaps in fullness, or stagnate that still expanse where the Good Shephard leads his flock at glory's noon. This inheritance may be yours by faith in Christ and a life of holy obedience, and there your "leaf shall not wither."

THE HAPPY MOURNERS.

ALEXANDER DICKSON, D.D.

They departed quickly from the sepulcher with fear and great joy, &c. MATT. XXViii: 8.

THE grave is generally regarded as a gloomy placepeculiarly consecrated to grief. We go there in silence and slowly. The service at the grave is more solemn than any other, and with sadness in our hearts and on our countenances, we take the last long look at

the place where the loved one is laid, and turn away weeping such tears as only the soul can shed.

The text tells us of one grave from which the mourners went away with "great joy." It was the Saviour's grave, and the happy mourners "Mary Magdelene and Mary the mother of James and Salome." They had gone very early in the morning of the first Christian Sabbath to the sepulcher to weep and with spices to embalm the dead body of Jesus. But they found the stone rolled away and angels there who assured them that Jesus had risen, &c. The tomb was empty, and that is the reason their sorrow was turned into joy. Fear was mingled with their gladness as if they almost doubted if the news was not too good to be true.

These happy mourners are not alone in their experience. Gather up those crumbs of comfort that the Gospel scatters around the grave of those who sleep in Jesus and they will fill your heart with joy.

I. The Saviour's empty sepulcher is an eloquent preacher. Its language is "Thy dead men shall live, &c." As the resurrection of Christ was predicted, it should have been expected by his friends, but it does not seem to have been in all their thoughts; so that the words of the women, announcing His resurrection seemed to the apostle as "idle tales," and Jesus was obliged to appear to them again and again to establish his identity.

II. The resurrection of Christ is more than a pledge, it is also a pattern of the resurrection of His people. The same body that was born in Bethlehem and died on Calvary, rose again. John xx: 27. So the same body which we now have we shall have again in the resurrection, when Christ shall "change our vile body and make it like," &c. 1 Thess. iv 13, 14, 18.

III. Meanwhile the bodies of your beloved dead shall rest in peace. The grave is not a gloomy prison house since

Jesus has lain there, but a quiet habitation, the only place of perfect rest in this world. To the Saviour it was a place of sweet repose, and so it is with the child of God. When he comes to the grave his toils are all ended, tears all shed and troubles all past.

IV. The spirits of our departed Christian friends are given to God. Just as He was expiring on the cross Jesus said, "Father, into thy hands I commend my Spirit, &c.," and before his body was laid in Joseph's tomb His soul was safe in His Father's house. The same is true of every saint befere the body is buried the soul has reached the realms of glory. Absent from the body it is present with the Lord. The souls of believers at their death pass immediately to glory.

V. We ought not to think so much of the grave in which the body is laid, as of the glory into which the soul has gone.

It is mainly because we are so slow of heart to believe all that our Heavenly Father has told us concerning our departed friends, that there is so little sweetness in our cup of bereavement. We think only of our great loss, of our desolate home, and the very crown of life is eclipsed by the coffin and the glory excelling grows dim in the shadow of death. We look too much into our own broken hearts, when we ought to look up to heaven, at the heart bounding there with joys that may not be expressed. If we would look at the heavenward side of the sepulcher, when the dear dead dust is buried out of sight, we would depart from "the sepulcher with fear and great joy."

VI. When our friends are gone our communion is with them still. All the while the Saviour's body was in the grave, and His soul was in Heaven, He was doubtless thinking about His dear disciples, and we know for cer tain that they were thinking about Him. He was in all