saw Him a cold, blood-sprinkled corpse. Others had shown love to Jesus while He was speaking and living, but Joseph showed love when He was silent and dead.
Let us take comfort in the thought that there are true Christians on earth, of whom we know nothing, and in places where we should not expect to find them. No doubt the faithful are always few. But we must not hastily conclude that there is no grace in a family or in a parish, because our eyes may not see it. We know in part and see only in part, outside the circle in which our own lot is cast. The Lord has many " hidden ones" in the Church, who, unless brought forward by special circumstances will never be known till the last day. The words of God to Elijah should not be forgotten, " Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel." (1 Kings xix. 18.)
Let us notice, lastly in this passage, ivhat honor our Lord Jesus Christ has placed on the grave, by allowing Himself to be laid in it We read that he was " laid in a sepulchre hewn out of a rock," and a " stone rolled unto the door."
This is a fact that in a dying world we should always remember. It is appointed unto men once to die. We are all going to one place, and we naturally shrink from it. The coffin and the funeral, the worm and corrup- tion, are all painful subjects. They chill us, sadden us, and fill our minds with heaviness. It is not in flesh and blood to regard them without solemn feelings. One thing, however, ought to comfort believers, and that is the thought, that the grave is " the place where the Lord once lay." As surely as He rose again victorious