upon us anything incongruous with the new existence the departed have entered on. The songs they began here, and the lessons they were learning by our side, are all ended and perfected yonder. It is not difficult to realize them as in God's presence, at the feet of Jesus, since the life continued out of our sight, is but an extension of the one they lived before our eyes. Death divested the thread of its impurities,-its colouring is now celestial, but it was formed long before death touched it—it passed through our own hands. These very remembrancers also help to console us. To which of them would the emancipated spirit be willing to return? Such sacred mementos themselves seem to say, “If ye loved them ye would rejoice." They are all too perishable, too unsatisfying that we should wish our beloved ones back to dwell among them, and thus, if they draw our tears afresh, they dry them up again as quickly as they flow. Tears will flow, and the Bible has no rebuke for tears. It reveals to us the bottle where they are treasured, but it foretells tears to the end, and says there is but one hand that can wipe them all away at last.

SORROW NOT EVEN AS OTHERS WHICH HAVE NO HOPE. A Christian does not sorrow less than others for the

loss of his child. It is the manner of sorrowing that differs. The grief repressed at first may spread itself out over days and years to come. There are worldly parents who have been all but distracted when the rod smote them, yet in a season or two the ball-room has welcomed them back again. There are Christian parents who have found the beating storm calmed at once, when the Lord said, "It is I;" but it only changed to be like thunder on distant hills-a bass voice to deepen thenceforward all the music of the soul.

Immoderate grief does not last. In the case of the Christian parent it ought to be disallowed. His first lesson in Christ's school was loyalty to his Lord, and each startling dispensation makes that key-note ring in his innermost soul. He dares not indeed trust himself out of his Saviour's presence to go and mourn alone, nor dares he look out upon a dreary future. He refuses even to take thought for the morrow, and over against the agony of the hour he sets the joy of Christ's glorious second coming. Yet there is perhaps room for self-indulgence in that first period of grief, during which none who approach him expect him to be otherwise than sorrowful. All are ready to acknowledge, for the time, the reality of the unseen

world whither the departed is gone, and there is even something like a presence of the beloved one hanging over the place which shall know him no more. The Christian is sometimes apt to ask for an extension of the days of mourning, and only to awake fully to his loss when others are ceasing to make allowance for him. But if he has experienced that Christianity does expand and strengthen the very power to grieve, he must beware that it be not, through him, accused of withholding proportionate consolation. Such a testing season ought to bring out clearly to his consciousness the truth, Ye are not your own, and teach him to be ready not only to ascend the Pisgah-heights of faith, but to walk on the rough road of daily duty in the sight of men.

"There was one," says Mrs Sigourney, of America, "and my heart holds her image as among the most perfect of earthly beings, who in early life was written childless. Her three beautiful sons were taken from her in one week. In one week! and their places were never supplied. The little student of seven years was smitten while over his books, the second at his sports, the youngest on his mother's knee. The deepest humility, the most earnest searchings of heart, were

the immediate results of this bereavement. It dwelt on her mind that for some deficiency in her Christian character this chastisement had been appointed. The language of her contrite prayer was, 'Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And he told her. And she becaine a mother in Israel! A sleepless, untiring benevolence was the striking lineament of her life. After the stroke of widowhood fell upon her, and she stood entirely alone, it seemed as if every vestige of selfishness was extinct, and that her whole existence was devoted to the good of others."

Just as before the Christian mother had no liberty to idolize or adorn her children as the mothers of the world may do, so now she may not mourn for them as such mothers mourn. She may not say her all is gone nor that her heart is broken; but girding up the loins of her mind she must trim her lamp once more for the dark journey. "What! could ye not watch with me one hour?" is a rebuke which has many applications. "This hour, the darkest thou mayest be called to pass below, the greatest opportunity to glorify me, wilt thou pass it in the sorrow of the world, or watch with me?" The mourner hears and obeys. She will neither enervate her mind by gazing always back on days that

cannot return, nor paralyze her energies by imagining all that may be before her, and which yet may never come. She will walk on in the blended light of a happy past and a brighter futurity, interweaving their influences over the groundwork of her sorrow. Her company is gone before her, safe over the river; she will stay herself on the Angel of the covenant till the morning break.

TO DIE IS GAIN. Paul said so; and we should often say so to ourselves, pressing out from words so clear all the definite comfort which they were intended to convey to us. Paul was an accurate reckoner, well accustomed to strike a balance in spiritual things, and to weigh the seen and the unseen, the temporal and the eternal. "To me to live is Christ," in his case included a great deal. From the outset of his career, the whole of his ardent soul had been launched into his work. All along the footsteps of the great sower of the Gentile field, were living tracks of light. Churches had risen throughout Greece. He hoped to see their like on the coast of Spain, and to watch the infant churches through another decade or more of their existence on a hostile soil, was his strong desire. He longed to seize for his Master the Mediterranean and