"why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead ?"

"Ask not how this can be? sure the same power
That reared the piece at first and took it down,
Can re-assemble the loose scattered parts,
And put them as they were. Almighty God
Has done much more, nor is His arm impaired
Through length of days! and while He can He will,
His faithfulness stands bound to see it done."

With this view of the subject, then, we may in prospect sing, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ." The great, the wide, "the greedy sea," shall give up her dead, and all the tombs and vaults of the earth shall give up their dead. The voice of the archangel's trump shall be heard in every land -sounding through the whole world-and all the dead shall be as attentive and obedient to its call, as was Lazarus to the voice of Him who "hath the keys of Hades and of Death." The thing is certain. All shall rise. And although this doctrine never could have been discovered by the unaided light of reason, yet, now that it is revealed, we can discern Divine arrangements, especially at certain seasons of the year, that both illustrate and confirm our faith in the resurrection of the dead.

In the winter season, the general appearance of the earth is one of gloom and sterility. Instead of fields and gardens exhibiting their usual signs of

life, they are covered with tokens of death. The verdure of the fields, the foliage of the trees, and the beauty of the flowers are mostly gone. Death reigns where, a short time before, everything was instinct with life. The birds no longer make the woods vocal with their music. The trees stretch out their naked arms, and exhibit their bare trunks to the bitter winter blasts. Where, a short time ago, there was everything to excite joy, we then see nothing but what is suggestive of melancholy thoughts. Judging from appearances, if we were ignorant of the reviving power of spring, we should never expect the re-appearance of that beauty which we in the preceding summer saw around us. We should never expect that the flowers would exhibit again their fair forms, or that the trees and meadows would ever again be clothed with their former verdure. We should conclude that the earth was doomed to perpetual leanness, and that the reign of death would be endless. But as the seasons roll on, the days begin to lengthen, the air becomes milder, the sun shines forth benignantly, the showers that fall minister refreshment to the earth, and the face of nature begins to change. Flowers of the most delicate and lovely hues are again seen peeping out of the ground. The trees, and hedge-rows, and fields are again revived. Every object that meets the eye in our gardens, and orchards, and fields exhibits signs of life again. The birds sing again among the branches, and all nature gives

signs of returning life.

Here, then, is a beautiful

emblem and illustration of the resurrection. Every plant, and shrub, and tree is an emblem of the resurrection. The eye is pleased wherever it looks. All around rejoices at the change. The valleys sing, and the trees clap their hands. The wilderness and the solitary place rejoice, and the desert blossoms as the rose. At the present interesting season of the year, we are reminded, by every walk into the fields and gardens, of the resurrection. And we feel no hesitancy in saying that He who, in so short a time, could produce a change so remarkable and universal, can raise the dead. We love the beauties of spring, and delight to leave the town to roam among these beauties, while every object that meets our eye preaches to us the resurrection. The buds and blossoms forcing themselves out of every branch and stem of every tree, preach to us the resurrection. "The little hills rejoicing on every side" sing resurrection; while the notes, the ever-welcome notes of the spring birds echo back resurrection. To the most sceptical person who walks out and attentively surveys the works of God at this delightful season, we urge the inquiry, "Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead?" Can you set limits to the power of Him whose voice has spoke life and fertility into so many thousand objects around you, that so short a time ago gave no signs of life!

Again, look at that crawling caterpillar; see the changes that it undergoes; it seems to all appearance to die; it enfolds itself snugly in a coffin; it buries itself in the earth; it exhibits no tokens whatever of life; but, as the spring comes round, that buried insect feels a genial influence. There is motion about that coffin; there seems to be life there; the grub comes quietly out of its grave, but how changed its appearance. It was once a loathsome thing; its appearance produced something approaching to disgust, but it is now arrayed in all the variegated colours of the rainbow. It no longer creeps, but flies from flower to flower, sipping their sweets, and vieing with them in loveliness and beauty. No one would have thought, who did not know its history, that the butterfly is the caterpillar changed and beautified. Here, then, we have an emblem and illustration of the resurrection. As it has burst the cerements of its little tomb, so shall we; as it has undergone so remarkable a change, so shall we on that glorious morning. Well may we sing, in the words of Dr. Dwight

"Shall Spring the faded world revive,

Shall waning moons their light renew,

Again shall setting suns ascend,

And chase the darkness from our view?

Shall life revisit dying worms,

And spread the joyful insect's wing,
And oh, shall man awake no more,

To see Thy face, Thy name to sing?

Faith sees the bright eternal doors,
Unfold to make Thy children way;
They shall be clothed in endless light,
And shine in everlasting day.”

Rejoice, child of mortality! The doctrine of the resurrection is the doctrine of the Bible. The grave shall not for ever triumph over those dear ones who have "fallen asleep in Christ."

"But they, new rising from the tomb,

With lustre brighter far shall shine,
Revive with ever-during bloom,
Safe from diseases and decline.”

As the Scriptures inform us of the certainty of the resurrection, and as the subject receives illustration and confirmation from the teachings of Spring, so from the same sources-but especially from the Bible-we receive information, as to the glories of “ that day,” and the wonderful contrast between the present and future condition of the human frame. Man shall rise. "Those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake." And what a glorious change shall be experienced by the body of the saint! Now he is weak, feeble, liable to disease. A thousand causes obstruct the organs of the frame in the healthy discharge of their functions. The food we eat, the fluids we drink, the air we breathe, and the labours which we perform, often derange the body now. The most healthy and longest lived soon die. The frame that once was almost an object of devotion soon becomes loathsome and