friendship le described in that benediction, which from the beginning has been pro- nounced over. tho assemblies of Christ's disciples at the dose of their worship. It is cBlled "tho grare of the Lord Jesus Christ," because it iR bestowed on the unworthy through the humiliation of the God-Man. It is called "the love of God," becouse it is the unveiling and outpouring of the Father's heart. And it is called "the communion of the lloly Ghost.," been.use it unites God's children with himself and with each other by one and the same Spirit. "\Vo must ndmit, indeed, that custom has made us so familiar with these words, that too often they seem only a becoming formula expected At o. certain moment; but the glorious things they speak of can never pall upon the renewed heart. If there is a freshness about each sunrise, as the traveller sees the morning spread upon the mountains, so there is a spiritual freshness about each glimpse of the glory of God. What child ever wearied of his father's smile? What Christian of the light of his heavenly Father's countenance? "With thee is the fountain of life : in thy light shall we sec light." Such are the springs of the life of God in the soul of man; but what are its characters, its pulses, so to speak, or its breathings, by which it may be known in our own experience? "'Tie life of which our souls are scant; Oh, lire I not death, for which we pant; More life and fuller that we wa.nt I" In the text it is contrasted with perishing, and something may be learned by the contrast; for though none in this place of hope know what it is to perish, yet many may know what it is to be ready to perish. It is to have no object worthy of the soul's capacities to cling to or lean upon. It is to be involved in uncertainty as to where we are or whither we are going. 'l.'o have the sphere of expected good growing narrower, the circle of expected evil growing wider. To have a heart becoming more selfish, more dead, .or more cold I And if this is to be ready to perish, then to have eternal life is tho opposite of all this. It is to have the gracious presence of God in Christ; to have the assured and ever-brightening prospect of better things to come; to breathe that love which is the reflection of the Divine image, because God is love; and which cannot be separated from happiness, for God is ever blessed. Such are the beginnings of eternal life, And he who gives it can sustain it in the hearts of his disciples. For he is mightier than all the enemies they can meet with here below ; and as to time itself, which buries so much in the waters of oblivion, and tests, and wastes, and weakens so many earthly ties, even timii cannot impair this friendship; "for Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever." 2. But what are the future aspects of eternal lifo; for, as its name imports, it passes beyond the frontiers of time, and transcends all the experiences of the present? A change indeed awaits even the disciples of Christ, mysterious, unknown, inconceivable, wben this world shall vanish from their sight, and the voices of their friends shall cease to sound in their ears, and when the powers of speech and even of will and thought shall fail them. Passive and helpless they shall lea.ve this stage of existence; passive and helpless they shall enter on the next. But see in the words before us how Christ makes himself responsible, not only for the dread transition, but for all the experiences that lie beyond it. "They shall never perish," etc. He does not speak of his great gift as becoming the independent possession of his disciples, which they themselves are to guard in the solemn hereafter. No, even there it will be the result of the happy o.nd enduring relation between the great Shepherd aud his flock. And this is the very thought which the Apostle Paul expands and makes his own in the climax of the eighth chapter of Romans: "I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, • . . shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." However far, then, we look forward to the future, we may say this much-that eternal life, in all its stages, will be the continuation and unfolding of what is begun here. 'l'he life of grace will pass into the life of glory, but its thread will not bo cut, nor its purposes broken off, nor its centre changed. Here its frail tent is a body of humiliation; there its dwelling-place shall be a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens; but in its root and essence it is ever the same life, upheld by the same Spil'it, watched over by the so.me Redeemer. "All his saints are in his hand," and uone shall pluck them thence. What the ultimate glory of eternal life will be, was more than the beloved disciplo himself could w~ll conceive. He says iu his .Firsi 80 THE GOSPEL ACOORDTNG TO ST. JOHN. [en. X, 1-42.
Rpistl,·, "It doth not yet appeR.r what we shR.11 bo: but we know that when he ehnll npperrr, we shall he like him; for we ehRll see him I\S he is." And is n~t this enough? CRn your thoughts and desires rise higher? We are taught, indeed, that when the my8tery of God has been finiRhed, the children of the resurrection shRll open their eyes on a new heaven and a new earth, where nothing that defileth shall ever enter. They ~hRll have oongenial s0ciety there; the companionship of the loyal and the true; Activity without weariness shall be their everlasting rest. But the crown of their blessedness eh&U be this, that they shall bear the image of their heavenly Lord. Once in the days of his flesh he prayed as never man prayed: "Father, I will th11t they nlso whom thou hn.et given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory.'l The answer to that prayer shall he eternal life.-G. B.