"so send I you." The sending was really not until after pentecost, and so also was the receiving of the Spirit. But as there was an official right to this future sending them actually given, so there was an official right to this future receiving, and also, we doubt not, an actual bestowal of the Holy Ghost, to such an extent as to be a pledge and promise of the future bestowal.

6. Their official power.

"Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them, and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained.”

This is that power to open and shut the kingdom of heaven, commonly called the power of the keys. It is not a judicial but a declarative power; not a power to acquit or condemn, as judges, but to declare, as ambassadors, the grounds of acquittal and condemnation. As connected with their extraordinary powers, it was a grant of authority to teach infallibly the grounds of pardon and condemnation, and to organize on these declared grounds a visible church. Hence it contained a grant of the powers of doctrine and discipline in the church,-to the apostles as extraor dinary officers, in an extraordinary sense, and to those who succeed them, as ordinary ministers, these powers in an ordinary sense. They were to remit sins as the priest cleansed the leper, not actually, but declaratively, by stating infallibly, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, the terms

of pardon, and the terms of church fellowship At the same time, Luke informs us, "that he opened their understandings to understand the scriptures," which is but another form of the power of doctrine, the ability to declare with authority, as inspired men the will of God for our salvation.

Such were some of the blessings linked with the Lord's day; blessings, all of which, in some form, are still connected with it, as the day of worship, the day of rest, and the day of instruction.

III. Thomas absent.

Why he was absent, we are not told. Perhaps he was sick, or engaged in some work of mercy; perhaps he thought this meeting for prayer useless, or uninteresting, that he could pray at home, or learn more there than he could at the meeting; perhaps he disliked night meetings; or perhaps he lived at some distance from the place of meeting; the night might have been cloudy, threatening rain, or the streets muddy and dark. Such reasons are very widely operative now, and might have been then.

But whatever was the reason, the fact is not stated to his honour. The implication is that his absence was caused by his unbelief, and that thus his unbelief continued. He missed the meeting with Jesus, and the peace, faith, hope, and joy that were connected with it. He remained in darkness

for another week, and doubtless in sorrow, for unbelief is but another name for unhappiness.

And is it not so still? Do not the missing disciples at the meeting for prayer often miss precious visits of Jesus? Is not the cause of absence also often the same? Is it not at last unbelief? Is it not that we do not believe in the value of these ordinances, or have no heart to attend them?

Let us then beware of such a record about us in the books, as we have here about Thomas, that "he was not with them when Jesus came." Let us be with the friends of Jesus now, in work and in worship, lest when he comes again, in that last, great day of his coming, the world's great evening and end, it may also be recorded of us, that when he gathers his saints together there, we are not with them, but cast out into the outer darkness. Let Jesus, when he visits his people met for prayer, find us among them.

CHAPTER IX.

THE SIXTH APPEARANCE. THE SCEPTICAL DISCIPLE.

The second Lord's day-The dark disciple. I. The causes of the scepticism of Thomas. (1) The original structure of his natureLiving in the shadow-(2) A wrong standard of belief.-The credulity of unbelief-(3) Absence from the meeting of the disciples-God honours his appointed means. II. The consequence of his unbelief. Wretchedness of soul-The sceptic wretched whether right or wrong. III. The removal of his scepticism. (1.) The awakening of his faith by a sight of Christ-(2) The confession of his faith-Did he blaspheme ?-(3) The personal character of his faith-(4) The benediction of Jesus -Goethe.

I heard the voice of Jesus say,

Come unto me and rest;

Lay down, thou weary one, lay down

Thy head upon my breast.

I came to Jesus as I was,

Weary, and worn, and sad,

I found in him a resting place,

And he has made me glad.

"And after eight days, again his disciples were within and Thomas with them; then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you. Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands, and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side; and be not faithless but believing. And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." John xx. 26--29.

THIS meeting was a second observance of the

Christian Sabbath. It was the evening of the Lord's day, i. e. after the eighth day, the day after the Sabbath, which was the seventh day; and as the day, by our mode of reckoning, ended at sunset, the evening of the first day of the week was really after the eighth day had ended, and hence the phrase, "an eight days," for a week, naturally took its rise. There seems to have been no appearance of our Lord during the intervening week. Where he was, and what his employments, we need not conjecture, though this silence suggests a corroboration of the views formerly presented in regard to the physical properties of his risen body

It would seem that Thomas, in the hasty conclusion to which he plunged after the crucifixion, that all was lost, had retired to some retreat, from which he did not emerge until after the first Lord's day. When he heard an account of its events, he rejected the whole thing as incredible. He as

sured the disciples that they had been cheated by an optical illusion.. Had they tested the reality of Christ's body by the sense of touch, they would have discovered their error. As for him, he will not believe, unless he has this evidence, unless he can touch the marks made by the crucifixion, and thus prove, beyond contradiction, that it is the identical body that was crucified. This scepti cism might have been removed during any other