THE STRANGE DEPARTURE.

HEBREWS xi. 5.

"Enoch was translated."

HAT variety there is in the works of God! The -ducts of nature, in this little world of ours, how ny, and how various, they are! The tropics and poles how they differ from each other! It gives great pleasure, and may afford us much instruction, gather together into a museum, samples or specims of the marvellous products of our globe. In the last years many have been running to and fro, knowledge has thus been increased, because exitions of nature and art have been made by the erprize and skill of learned men.

But what is this world of ours, this floating atom creation? Wherever we take our stand we look into the boundless ocean of space, and see bright ts on the face of the deep, like islands of light vening and beautifying the scene, and arousing our

Perhaps we live in the

curiosity. What is it all? outskirts of creation, on the Ultima Thule of Space. Perhaps there is a mighty and a glorious Metropolis, where the Almighty Ruler holds His court. And perhaps in that great Metropolis there is (if I may so speak) a museum, or exhibition of the products of all worlds. And perhaps this place is to be the everlasting abode of the saints, the home of the blessed.

Where is Enoch, and where Elijah, and where our Lord in bodily presence? If angels and inhabitants of heaven are affected by curiosity as we are, and long to know about the many worlds, that, to their keener gaze, lie out in the boundless regions of darkness; with what intense delight to them must be the arrival of the products of those worlds! Enoch borne into their presence; and Elijah in his chariot of fire; and the Lord Jesus returning with thousands of angels robed in raiment akin to theirs. I am not saying this is true ; and you cannot say, it is false. The resources of the Almighty and the Allwise are infinite; and we expect ere long to be permitted to visit other scenes than these on which our eyes are now set, and our knowledge will be greatly increased.

"Enoch

The assertion of the text is very striking. was translated;" that is, as is generally believed, he passed from this world to the next without tasting death. His history is very brief. The sum and substance of it being this; "And Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him." One other man

ceived honour of translation, Elijah the prophet. ur blessed Lord too, who took upon Him our nature the womb of the Virgin, ascended up to His Father, d now in bodily presence intercedeth for us. In aven therefore, if our supposition is correct, there e three bodies that claim the adoring interest of the numerable inhabitants.

The constitution, the powers of movement, and her attributes of spiritual bodies, we do not undernd. Our Lord summoned into His presence on one casion the bodies of Moses and Elias, and the disles appear to have known them readily. On more in one occasion, after His Resurrection, He became rsonally present even where every ordinary inlet s closed. Philosophers, too, assure us that there vast bodies of matter moving through space with onceivable velocity; and we can send intelligence e to another with marvellous accuracy and inconvable speed.

We have but a very faint conception of the wonders God's empire. Its various inhabitants; their modes life and action; their intercourse one with another; how many of them we shall be introduced; what I be the sphere of our ministry; matter, and affecs of matter; time, and space; all these are full wonders, and we are but of yesterday, and know hing.

Never stand aghast before

se of their wonderment.

Scripture statements be-
Never be so foolish as

to turn away, saying, I will not believe, because it is beyond the bound of your own little experience.

The translation of the bodies of Enoch and Elijah and our blessed Lord is certainly unique; it stands alone amid all the marvels of the world's experience, as far as we know. But we can easily conceive that it might have been the law of our removal hence, instead of the anomaly.

Suppose that the Lord God had ordained at first, that when the term of man's life was gained the body should be caught up into the sky, and either dissipated by the chemistry of the atmosphere, or carried away at once to another scene of life. Then there would have been nothing wonderful about it. We should have watched with sorrow and perplexity the uplifting of our departing friends, as now, with more cumbrous ceremonial we commit their bodies to the grave. We say things are wonderful when they are unlike our ordinary experience, and yet perhaps, our ordinary experience, if made known to other beings, and in other parts of creation, would be wonderful to them and there. Oh! be assured everything is wonderful. Robes of mystery; robes of grace and beauty; affections marvellous, and qualities wonderful, adorn the multitude of things by which we are surrounded, had we the desire, the skill, the wisdom to see them.

Besides, taking an instance near at hand; the experience of a Christian is as wonderful to the mere man of the world, as little understood, as are the

steries of creation known and read of us all. What =s the sinful man know of being crucified with Christ; cutting off his right hand? What does he know chis-" the love of Christ constraineth us;" or this I can do all things through Christ that strengthth me"? God's wisdom is to the Greeks, the learnthe refined, the philosophical Greeks, Foolishness! e wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. f the bodies of Enoch and Elijah are in heaven, y must of course have undergone such changes as e necessary to fit them for residence in so glorious a ze; for flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom God, neither can corruption inherit incorruption. , we may rest assured, that He who thought fit emove them hence in so strange and marvellous anner, caused to pass over them the necessary ges, and made them meet to be partakers of the eritance of the saints in light. To my mind the oval of two bodies to the regions of bliss is a source atisfaction; and had I been Methuselah the son noch, I should have charged my memory, and my I love, with most pleasant associations, as I conplated again and again the condition of my father he realms of the departed.

ow much certain information respecting Enoch handed down from the first ages by tradition we ot now be assured of; that some such knowledge possessed by the Christians in the times of the stles we may well believe. Among the faithful