perplexity with the mystery of death. We tried to think on that Love, mightier than death, which even in the hour of insult could calmly excuse the circumstances of that insult, and forgive it. We tried to think of that sentence, as the sentence of God, which promised forgiveness and a place in Paradise to the dying penitent. We meditated on that infinite tenderness of human affection, which, in the dying hour, provided for a mother a son, and for a friend a brother; seeming to assure us that these domestic affections shall last beyond the grave. We tried to think, too, of His trust in commending His soul into His Father's hands. And, lastly, we considered that marvellous expression in the original, one single word which declared that the Duty and the Life of Christ were only closed together. Now if there be no resurrection of the dead, then that Life was cast aside by God as worthless. was, and is not: and that pardon which He besought, and which seemed so worthy of God to grant, was not ratified above and that earthly darkness was but the prelude to that eternal night into which the Soul of the Redeemer was entering; that sublime trust was not accepted by the Father, but sternly and cruelly rejected; Judas forsook Him, and God, like Judas, forsook Him too! The Pharisees conquered, and God stood by and ratified their triumph! And then the disbeliever in immortality asks us to believe in, to trust, and to love that God who treated Jesus so. This is the impossibility, the incredibility, founded on the moral character of God, which we are compelled to receive, if we deny the Resurrection!

It

The third absurdity is, that the Christian faith is then unable to free from sin. The ground upon which the Apostle stood was this, that no faith can save from sin without the belief in immortality. We are then driven to this conclusion, that since every other faith has failed hitherto, the Christian faith has failed also, since the immortality it professes is vain. Now one objection by which this argument has been met is this: "That goodness," say the objectors, "which rests only

on the belief of immortality, is but a form of selfishness. after all." And I do believe that there are men who reject the doctrine of the Resurrection chiefly on this ground, because they think that only by denying it can they deliver man from selfishness. And, because this view is plausible, and because it contains in it some germ of truth, let us look at it for a moment. If a man does good for the sake of reward, or if he avoids evil on account of the punishment due to it, so far his goodness is but a form of selfishness; and observe, that the introduction of the element of eternity does not alter the quality of it. But when we come to look at the effect produced upon us in liberating us from sin by the belief in immortality, we shall see that it is not the thought of reward that enters into that conception; when you have got to the lowest depth of your heart, you will find that it is not the mere desire of happiness, but a craving as natural to us as the desire for food the craving for nobler, higher life. To be with God, to see God, and to understand Him. this is meant by the desire of everlasting life. This is the language of Christianity: "Ye are the children of light." Ye are stated in the Bible in words, and symbolically in baptism, to be the children of God; ye are the heirs of Immortality; do not live as if ye were only the heirs of Time. Narrow this conception, limit that infinite existence to seventy years, and all is inevitably contracted, every hope stunted, high aims become simply impossible.

And now, my Christian brethren, we ask, what is the single motive that can be brought forward to liberate a man from selfishness, when you have taken away this belief in immortality? Will you tell him to live for posterity?what is posterity to him? or for the human race in ages hereafter? but what is the human race to him, especially when its eternity is taken. from it, and you have declared it to be only mortal? The sentence of the Apostle is plain: "Your faith is vain, ye are yet in your sins." Infidelity must be selfish; if to-morrow we die, then to-day let us eat and

drink; it is but a matter of taste how we live. If man is to die the death of the swine, why may he not live the life of the swine? If there be no immortality, why am I to be the declarer and defender of injured rights? Why am I not to execute vengeance, knowing that if it be not executed now, it never can be? Tell us why, when every passion is craving for gratification, a man is to deny himself the satisfaction, if he is no exalted thing, no heir of immortality, but only a mere sensitive worm, endowed with the questionable good of a consciousness of his own misery? These are the questions which infidelity has to answer.

The last incredibility from which the Apostle argues is, that, if there be no resurrection, then they that have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. When the Apostle speaks of those fallen asleep in Christ, he does not necessarily mean only those who have borne the Christian name, but those who have lived with the mind of Christ and died with His Spirit. Those who in the elder dispensation only dimly descried the coming of that purer day, scarcely knowing what it was; who still in that faith lived the high and noble life of the ancient Jew; also those, neither Jew nor Christian, who lived in heathen days, but were yet not disobedient to the Eternal Voice speaking in their hearts; and who by means of that lived above their generations, penetrating into the invisible, and so became heirs of the righteousness which is by faith; all those, therefore, have perished! Now see what these skeptics require us to believe that all those who have shed a sunshine upon earth, and whose affections were so pure and good that they seemed to tell you of an Eternity, perished utterly, as the selfish and impure! You are required to believe that those who died in the field of battle, bravely giving up their lives for others, died even as the false and the coward dies. You are required to believe that, when there arose a great cry at midnight, and the Wreck went down, they who passed out of the world with the oath of blasphemy, or the shriek of despair, shared the same fate with those who calmly re

signed their departing spirits into their Father's hand, with nothing but an awful silence to greet them, like that which greeted the priests of Baal on Mount Carmel! You are required to believe that the pure and wise of this world have all been wrong, and the selfish and sensual all right. If from this you shrink as from a thing derogatory to God, then there remains but that conclusion to which St. Paul conducts us: 66 Now is Christ risen from the dead." The spiritual resurrection is but the mere foretaste and pledge of the literal. Let us, brethren, seek to rise with Christ above this world and our own selves, for every act tells on that Eternity, every thought and every word reap an everlasting

harvest.

"Therefore," says the Apostle, in the conclusion of this chapter, "be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord."

LECTURE XXIX.

1 CORINTHIANS, xv. 21–34.

"For since by man came death, by man

came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the first-fruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming. Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. - The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. -For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith, All things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him. - And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all. Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead? -And why stand we in jeopardy every hour?-I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.—If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink; for to-morrow we die. - Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.-Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame."

IN following the train of argument contained in this chapter, it must be clearly kept in remembrance that the error combated by St. Paul was not the denial of immortality, but the denial of a resurrection. The ultra-spiritualizers in Corinth did not say, "Man perishes for ever in the grave," but, "The form in which the spirit lived shall never be restored. From the moment death touches earthly life, Man becomes for ever a bodiless spirit." No doubt in this chapter there are passages in which the Apostle speaks of Immortality, but they are only incidental to the general argument; as for example, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." The chief thing, therefore, to lay stress on is,