Collect, read, learnt, marked, inwardly digested--that to you will be the washing of the robes and the making them white in the blood of the Lamb.

It is said "they stand before the throne of God and of the Lamb." Here we sit at his feet learning the lessons that he teaches; there we stand before him here humble, lowly, on the earth; there raised to the dignity of sons, heirs, sitting with the Lamb upon his throne, as he has sat down with the Father upon his throne. Mark, in the next place, the dignity of their positionthey stand before the throne; not before a cross, but before the throne. The idea is introduction into the royal presence of Him who is King of kings and Lord of lords. Then it is said, in the next place, "they shall hunger no more;" that is to say, if there be the sensation of physical hunger it will be no sooner felt than it will be satisfied. But if it allude to spiritual hunger, they shall no more hunger for living bread; the living bread that cometh down from heaven will be their nutriment for ever and ever. And then how magnificent is that picture: "He that sitteth upon the throne shall dwell among them!" The Hebrew word shechinah, the shechinah, or the bright glory that dwelt between the cherubim on the mercy seat in the ancient temple, is derived from the Hebrew verb shakan, which means "to dwell among us ;" and these words translated literally from the Hebrew, as they are not, but from the Greek, would be, And he that sitteth upon the throne shall be the shechinah, the visible glory in the midst of them." "And the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne," it is said, "shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters." But it is very noticeable here that they serve God: " they are before the throne of God, and serve him." There is no indolence there, they serve-active religion. Perhaps now the redeemed souls that are in heaven at this moment serve him. We know that angels are constantly ministering to him; they are ministering spirits to them that are the heirs of salvation. And I have not the least doubt that your brothers and your sisters, and your fathers and

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your mothers, and your husbands and your wives, and your children, that are now in heaven, are engaged in sublime and ceaseless service, carrying out the grand behests of Him who is King of kings and Lord of lords. And it may be, I do not assert it, because Scripture is silent here -it may be that the thought suggested to your mind, that turning of your feet that altered the whole current of your life, may have been a ministry from some angel or one of those glorified ones sent to minister to them that are the heirs of salvation. "They serve him day and night, without ceasing." And then it is said: "The Lamb which is in the midst of the throne." What a thought! heaven will never be without the shadow of Calvary. It is very striking that throughout the whole Apocalypse, which is a picture of the future state, we read constantly of the reminiscences of a cross. "I saw a Lamb just as if he had been slain ;" and again: “The Lamb which is in the midst of the throne." There is a most remarkable contrast running through the whole Apocalypse between two churches, and between two great and living ones. The one church is called the the woman seated on seven hills; and the other is the spouse, the bride, ǹ vvμon, the bride of the Lamb. Then there are two glorious living ones; the Lamband it is remarkable that the Greek word translated "Lamb" is not the masculine, which occurs in John's Gospel, but the neuter, apviov, "the Lamb;" and then the correlative of that is Onpiov, the wild beast on the seven hills, drunk with the blood of the saints. And if you will only read the Apocalypse carefully, carrying with you these two contrasts, the false church and the true church-the wild beast drunk with the blood of the saints, and the Lamb-you will have the grand outline by which you may estimate and measure the length and breadth of that magnificent vision. This Lamb that bears the reminiscence of a cross; this Lamb who points back to Calvary by his appearance; this Lamb who has all the traces of his agony and bloody sweat, is in the midst of the throne, a throned Lamb, a King and a Priest, a Sacrifice and a Saviour.

πορνη,

"And he shall feed them" with living bread, "and shall lead them unto living fountains." In this world we have cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water, but there we find living fountains. "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." The Hebrew word for a fountain is the same Hebrew word which means also the eye, and the word is suggestive; he shall lead them unto living fountains of waters; and God shall wipe away all tears from those fountains that overflow oftener than we wish by eyes accustomed to weep. And this peculiarity of the Hebrew explains that beautiful passage in Jeremiah, where he says: "Oh that mine eyes were tears, and my head were a fountain of water." Oh that my fountains, that is the eyes, really wept, and that my head were one whole eye, that it might weep day and night for the sins of my people.

We shall see him one day no more through a glass darkly, but face to face; and the splendour and the riches of that high festival will make us marvel that we were so pleased and satisfied with this world's poor fare. Let me ask, have you washed your robes in that precious blood? Have you cast your sins upon the Lamb that taketh them away? ? Do you belong to the bride, that church that is making herself ready, on which the baptism of the Spirit, both here and elsewhere, seems to be descending? Are you in that happy number? do you belong to that bright and blessed company? Then happy are ye; rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven.

LECTURE XII.

THE HAPPY DEAD.

EVEN now those we call dead are happy. As the day approaches their resurrection comes nearer, and the epochal hour of their perfect joy begins to sound.

"And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them."-REVELATION xiv. 13.

It would be a poor religion that would carry its consolations to the fireside, but arrest them at the grave's mouth. It would not be equal to all the necessities of our condition, if it did not shed its calm of peace, its splendour of hope, where the near and the dear repose beneath the shadow of the cypress, as well as scatter its bright and happy lights under Christmas roof-trees and by Christmas firesides. It is a religion for the breaking heart as well as for the bounding heart; for life's sorrows as well as for life's joys; and one does not know whether it ministers most of sweetness

to our joys or of consolation in our sorrows; it equally meets the necessities of both-it is a religion in which to live and to die, and to hope, as we lie down under the shadow of death, that we shall rise again. The language of the seer is the language of joy. Unhappily we have not yet grown accustomed to look at death, as we should, in the light of Christianity, of the Cross, of Gethsemane, Mount Zion, and the resurrection morn. We associate with death all that is gloomy, and dark, and sepulchral. Hence, the monuments you find in cemeteries are often Egyptian sarcophagi, broken columns,

images of weepers like Rachel that will not be comforted, inverted torches. What are all these? Heathen symbols, the symbols of despair, the monuments that atheism might erect, but that Christianity must spurn and deplore. Everything associated with the sleepingplace of the sainted dead should be bright, and joyous, and happy. If one could take away from Père la Chaise its frivolity, one would like to retain its brightness. At all events, when we look upon the dead that die in the Lord we can say, not, How wretched, how sad, how miserable! but, Happy are the dead. Now no religion can teach you and me to say so except that which had its birth on a Christmas-day 1862 years ago. No religion can enable us to pronounce "Blessed are the dead" but the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ. Happy even is the prince that leaves a magnificent ancestral palace; for if numbered with God's saints in glory everlasting, the transference from earth's brightest scene to heaven's dimmest spot is a transference so glorious that the redeemed that are there must often marvel at the weepers they witness upon earth. If they could speak out from their silence and transmit their voices across the chasm that separates them from us, they would ask, Have you forgotten the words that are taught you in the Apocalypse: "Blessed," not miserable, "are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth; Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them?"

We have first of all described here those who are called "the dead." It is, and I admit it so far, a sorrowful reflection that the dead beneath England's soil outnumber the living that are on it. In fact, we

walk upon the dust and over the tombs of the dead. Buried generations are beneath every footprint as we traverse the streets of the great city of this great empire. If these dead were unenlightened, or if these dead were all in suffering, it would be a sad thought; but there is here a benediction pronounced upon the sleeping dead that consecrates the ashes of those that are gone, and converts the very chamber of weeping into an