life, our hope in death. It is a purifying hope. It is a gladdening hope. It comforts us when laying in the grave the clay of those whom we have loved. It cheers us when feeling the weakness of our own frame, and thinking how soon we shall lie down in dust. It refreshes and elevates when we remember how much precious dust earth has received since the day of righteous Abel. How sweet that name— RESURRECTION! It pours life into each vein and vigour into each nerve at the very mention of it! It is not carnal thus to bend over the clay-cold corpse and long for the time when these very limbs shall move again; when that hand shall clasp ours as of old; when those eyes shall brighten; when those lips shall resume their suspended utterance; when we shall feel the throbbings of that heart again! No, it is scriptural, it is spiritual. Some may call it sentimental; but it is our very nature. We cannot feel We cannot otherwise, even if we would. but love the clay. We cannot but be loth to part with it. We cannot but desire its reanimation. The nature that God has given us can be satisfied with nothing less. And with nothing less has God purposed to satisfy it. "Thy brother shall rise again." "Them that have been laid to sleep by Jesus will God bring with him." We feel the weight of that mortality that often makes life a burden; yet we say, "Not that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality may be swallowed up of life." We lay within the tomb the desire of our eyes, yet we cling to the remains, and feel as if the earth that struck the coffin were wounding the body on which it falls. At such a moment the thought of opening graves and rising dust is unutterably precious. We shall see that face again. We shall hear that voice again. Not only does the soul that filled that clay still live; but that clay itself shall be revived. Our risen friend shall be in very deed-form, look, voice-the friend that we have known and loved. Our risen brother will be all that we knew him here when, hand in hand, we passed through the wilderness together, cheered with the blessed thought that no separation could part us long, and that the grave itself could unlink neither hands nor hearts. CHAPTER VIII. THE REUNION. THE family has been all along a scattered one. Not only has it been scattered along the ages, but it has been dispersed over every land. "Children of the dispersion" might well be the name of its members. They have no continuing city, nay, no city at all that they can call their own; sure of nothing here beyond their bread and raiment; no where able to reckon upon a certain dwelling, yet having always the promise of it some where. Besides this scattering, arising from their being thus called out of every kindred and nation, there are others more bitter. There is the scattering which persecution makes, when it drives them from city to city. There is the scattering which adversity makes, when happy circles are broken up, and their fragments sent far asunder. There is the scattering which oftentimes jealousy and contention and selfish rivalry produce, even among the saints. There is the scattering which bereavement makes, when strong ties are broken, and warm love spilt like water on the ground; when fellowship is rent asunder, and living sympathies chilled by death, and tears of choking anguish are all the relief of loneliness and sorrow. As Israel was scattered among the nations, so have the saints been; not indeed like Israel, because of the wrath of God against them, but still scattered every where. "The Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other," (Deut. xxviii. 64,) were God's words to Israel, and the L |