the soul. And for just the same reason, Christ, when He opens the soul, opens immortality also. What was so dimly revealed under the old religion, stands out visible everywhere under the new. There is no room here for a Sadducee to live. The metropolis of the world is here in Christ's person, and the visitants of all unknown spheres crowd about Him, ascending and descending upon Him. And they are all certified to our faith by His supernatural character. We grow familiar thus with spirit, realise it, and know it in ourselves.

HORACE BUSHNELL.

LESSED that flock safe penned in Paradise;

BL

Blessed this flock which tramps in weary ways; All form one flock, God's flock; all yield Him praise By joy or pain, still tending toward the prize. Joy speaks in praises there, and sings and flies Where no night is, exulting all its days; Here, pain finds solace, for, behold, it prays; In both love lives the life that never dies. Here life is the beginning of our death,

And death the starting-point whence life ensues; Surely our life is death, our death is life :

Nor need we lay to heart our peace or strife, But calm in faith and patience breathe the breath God gave, to take again when He shall choose.

CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.

April 9

Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.-HEB. xii. 1, 2.

Martyrs and Confessors, Rulers and Doctors of

the Church, devoted Ministers and Religious brethren, kings of the earth and all people, princes

and judges of the earth, young men and maidens, old men and children, the first-fruits of all ranks, ages, and callings, gathered each in his own time into the Paradise of God. This is the blessed company which to-day meets the Christian pilgrim in the Services of the Church. We are like Jacob, when, on his journey homewards, he was encouraged by a heavenly vision.

DR. J. H. NEWMAN.

felt

Enough that once ye dwelt Where now we dwell, enough that once ye As now we feel, to bid you recognise Our claim of kindred cherished though unseen; And Love that is to you for eye and ear

Hath ways unknown to us to bring you nearTo keep you near for all that comes between ; As pious souls that move in sleep to prayer, As distant friends that see not, and yet share (I speak of what I know) each other's care; So may your spirits blend with ours! above Ye know not haply of our state, yet Love Acquaints you with our need, and through a way More sure than that of knowledge-so ye pray!

And even thus we meet,

And even thus we commune ! spirits freed
And spirits fettered mingle, nor have need
To seek a common atmosphere; the air
Is meet for either in this olden, sweet
Primeval breathing of man's spirit-Prayer.

DORA GREENWELL.

April 10

Verily, verily, henceforward ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.-S. JOHN i. 50, 51.

Thinkest thou that I cannot beseech my Father, and He shall even now send me twelve legions of angels? -S. MATT. xxvi. 53.

YET VET these Heavenly Hosts ever wait upon us. Their ceaseless ministry to our Lord is the pattern of their ministry to us, for 'We are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones.' How they were ever serving Him unseen, the Gospels show. And that He was conscious of this ministry, and taught His disciples to expect it, His repeated words declare :-'Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and He shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?'

I

ANDREW JUKES.

CAN at will, doubt not, as soon as thou,
Command a table in this wilderness,

And call swift flights of angels ministrant
Array'd in glory on my cup to attend.

MILTON.

FTERWARDS, peaceful sleep-yet, had men

eyes,

Sleep watched by wondering eyes of wakeful stars,
And guarded, out of that new-opening heaven
By glorious angels, golden sentinels,

Keeping Him safe, whose words shall save the world.

SIR EDWIN ARNOLD.

April 11

Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to do service for the sake of them that shall inherit salvation? -HEB. i. 14.

And, behold, angels came and ministered unto Him. -S. MATT. iv. II.

It behoved Him in all things to be made like unto His brethren.-HEB. ii. 17.

THOUGH we put controversy out of the question, we cannot put angels out of the question without discrediting the whole Gospel narrative.

Everything we are told about the Almighty and His operations points to infinite agency in infinite degrees. The argument that we neither see angels, nor are able to conceive what they are like, nor to be sure of their interference with us, can have no weight with those who believe in God at all, or in anything unseen. No person in the whole Bible is so foretold, announced, heralded, assisted, escorted, comforted, ministered to, and served in many ways, as our Lord, and the like services, though in various degrees, are continued to His Apostles.

REV. T. MOZLEY.

'MINISTERING spirits' sent

Both to follow' and 'prevent,
Lest the loved ones, Thou dost own
'Dash their foot against a stone.'

But with gentlest, tend'rest love,
All their other care above,

They with earnest hearts and eyes
Watch'd the wondrous sacrifice.

Followed with admiring gaze
All their Lord's mysterious ways,
From the day He stooped to men,
Till He rose to heaven again.

One to 'blessed' Mary came,

Told the hour and breathed the Name
One to 'shepherds in the field,'
Their incarnate God revealed.

Many, when the fight was o'er,
To the desert comfort bore;
Eager who should first appear
Their exhausted Lord to cheer.

In the agony and sweat
Of His prayers on Olivet,

One to wipe His brow of blood,

And bring strength, beside Him stood.

Two were near Him when He rose,
Laid aside His burial clothes,
And with ling'ring fond delay
Sat to watch where Jesus lay.

And when He on high ascended,
Wrapt in clouds, by hosts attended,
Hail'd while entering heaven's abode,
Son of man! and Son of God.

Two in robes of white array'd
Willingly behind Him stay'd
To uplift the hearts, that yearn
O'er His loss, to His return.

April 12

DR. J. S. B. MONSELL.

I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.-S. MATT.

xi. 25.

Faith is the . . . evidence of things not seen.HEB. XI. I.

CHRIST

'HRIST did not come to be approved before the tribunal of your mere logic, or lore, or critical acumen; but before a nobler and more competent; which, though it be in you, is yet hidden from you. Having a nature boundlessly related to the supernatural, flowering never, save in the knowledge and concourse of supernatural society, you put your critical extinguishers on it and stifle it, and then you can even triumph in the discovery that all you most sublimely want is incredible-scientifically impossible! . . . And so it is of all supernatural being, God, angels, worlds above the world, universal society; they are known only as they are cognised, by the supernatural sensing of the spiritual man ; or, what is nowise different, by faith. And when

this is done, they are had in as complete evidence as the solids of matter.

HORACE BUSHNELL.