bereavement, tears of adversity, tears of heart-breaking sorrow, these are forgotten. We cannot weep again. The fountain of tears is dried up. God our Lord wipes off the tears. It is not time that heals the sorrows of the saints, or dries up their tears ; it is God; God himself; God alone. He reserves this for himself, as if it were his special joy. The world's only refuge in grief is time, or pleasure ; but the refuge of the saints is God. This is the true heal- ing of the wound ; and the assurance to us that tears once wiped away by God cannot flow again.
" The rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth." (Isa. xxv. 8.) As he is to do this for Israel, so also for the church. Rebuke, reproach, persecution, have been the church's lot on earth. The world hated the Master, and they have hated the servant. The " reproach of Christ," (Heb. xi.,) is a well-known re- proach. Shame for his name is what his
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saints have been enduring, and shall en- dure until he comes again. But all this is to be reversed. Soon the world's taunt shall cease. They shall scorn no more j they shall hate no more ; they shall revile no more, and no more cast out our names as evil. Honour crowns the saints, and their enemies are put to shame. It is but one day's reviling before men, and then an eternity of glory in the presence of God and of the Lamb. Then the name of saint shall be a name of glory, both in earth and heaven.
Why shrink then from the world's re- proach, when it is but a breath at the most, and when we know that it so soon shall cease ? Why not rejoice that we are counted worthy to sufTer shame for the name of Jesus, when we know that all that afflicts us here is not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us ? The morning, and the glory which the morning brings with it, will more than com-
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pensate for all. Let us be of good cheer then, and press onward, through evil re- port as well as through good, having respect unto the recompence of reward.
" Creation shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God." That morn- ing which brings resurrection to us brings restitution to creation — deliverance to a groaning earth. The same Lord that brings us out of the tomb, rolls back the curse from off creation, effacing the vestiges of the first Adam's sin, and presenting a fresh memorial of the second Adam's righteousness. Happy world ! when Satan is bound, when the curse is obliterated, when the bondage is broken, when the air is purged, when the soil is cleansed, when the grave is emptied, and when the risen saints take the throne of creation to rule in righteousness with the sceptre of the righteous King.
Resurrection is our hope ; our hope in
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life, our hope in death. It is a purifying hope. It is a gladdening hope. It com- forts us when laying in the grave the clay of those whom wTe 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 ; wrhen 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
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otherwise, even if we would. We cannot 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
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