changing spirit to this first resurrection? We know not! Holy Writ is silent. Perhaps, like the rest of their countrymen, they feared for a moment, and marvelled, and then went away, as they came, till both fear and marvel died away from their hearts!

And the widow and her son, what did they? of a surety they thanked, with all their heart and soul, their Redeemer and their God!-of a surety they were among the faithful in that hard-hearted and adulterous generation. And though mother was dear to son, and son to mother, yet each loved most Him who succoured them in the day of trouble, and rescued one from heart-breaking, and the other from death! Of a surety they both lived and fell asleep in Jesus! In the place of departed spirits, they dwell together, undivided in bliss. And when the saints shall put on their glory and reign, they shall reign with them, and tell to those glorified spirits who rejoice to hear of God's loving

kindness, the miracle of power and mercy, which, while they were yet in the flesh, Christ wrought for them at the gates of Nain!

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SERMON XV.

JOHN XX. 21, 22.-" Then said Jesus unto them again, Peace be unto you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost."

IN making these words the subject of our meditation to-day, I shall pass lightly over their application to the apostles and first servants of the Lord, who, by this embreathing of the Spirit upon them, received those gifts by which they were enabled to bring the world to Christ! We and the other christian churches are the monuments of the Spirit's work! And the peace which He gave the apostles, He gives to all that believe unto the world's

end. This is of most importance to us, in its application to ourselves, and therefore I purpose to dwell upon it.

And so considered, I think the words are full of joy and comfort! Instructive they certainly are; for they represent strikingly both the end and privilege of the Gospel-peace with God; and the mode in which it is conferred upon sinners—even the power of the Spirit proceeding from Christ! And, first of all, there is a whole world of meaning in the very word itself with which our blessed Lord salutes his apostles, now rejoicing in the restoration of their Master to them, and his resurrection from the dead. Peace be unto you! Peace unto them who had lately been so sorely tried and grieved in heart by his death and passion, and by all the waves of God's wrath which had passed over his head, who, as they thought, should have redeemed Israel. And so He had; but in wondrous ways which men's carnal under

standing had not dreamed of, and their earthly heart abhorred. And this promise of peace was the very assurance which He had given to the apostles, at his last supper, in that most divine discourse which you will find recorded in the Gospel of St. John! "Peace I leave with you, He says; my peace I give unto you! Not as the world giveth give I unto you." And yet to a worldly eye, it was an ill season for such a promise! Sorrow and hatred and persecution all round; and the agony in the garden close at hand; and the betrayal, and the flight of his disciples, and the trial, and the bloody death! Peace was hardly a harvest likely to spring from such a sowing! And yet He that is the truth and the life says so. He even clearly connects it with that very sorrow and death which to human eyes seemed utterly irreconcilable with it! Marvellous were thy words! O Saviour of men! and marvellous the divine way by which they were made good, and shall be made good