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fortune, how joyfully! to have the disciplined and well stored brain of that poor student whose cupboard is empty, and whose jerkin is threadbare; they would give it all, ten times over, to have the troop of children who fill that poor workman's home with their merry voices, or the throngs of friends whose benedictions haunt that genial spirit's modest fireside. To know and to love! These are the directions in which to seek our riches. Blessed is the man who has his storehouse full of them; these are the riches that bring no sorrow," which moth and rust corrupt not, which thieves break not through to steal," which death despoils not, but only transfigures, and inscribes in the book of the treasures of eternity. And how to win them ? My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments: for length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee. Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart: so shalt thou find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the Lord, and depart from evil. It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones. Honour the Lord with thy substance, and with the first-fruits of all thine increase: so shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine. My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of His correction: for whom the Lord loveth He correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth. Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her. Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches and honour. Her

ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace." (Prov. iii, 1-17.) This is life's secret; this the sphinxriddle read. Whoso knoweth this hath life, whoso will not know it will have none of God's counsel, must die the death, and his treasures must be scattered in the dust. There is no other way to make life a progress, but to root it in God. That which is rooted in Him, has the principle of everlasting growth, expansion, and widening riches, as the ages roll on; that which is rooted in nature only, in the will of the flesh, in the word of the world, must share nature's conditions, and return, like all that is born of nature, to the dust from whence it sprang, to shrivel, wither, vanish, in the final flame. "I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree, yet he passed away, and lo! he was not; yea, I sought him and he could not be found. Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace." The law of increase, the growing riches of the years. Who cannot take up the song of Jacob, the burst of grateful thanksgiving? "And Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, the Lord which saidst unto me, Return unto thy country, and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee : I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which Thou hast shewed unto Thy servant; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan; and now I am become two bands." (Gen. xxxii, 9, 10.) Yes, but the growth may be ended in a moment, and all its increase may be gathered by death. This introduces us to—

II. The higher development of the law of increase, the deeper and more solemn sense in which, through the ministry of the angel of death, we become "two bands." I say the angel of death. Christ has stripped him of the cloak of terror which to man, the transgressor he wore; to man, the redeemed

child, his face has become as the face of an angel; God has made him the minister of the highest development, the most intense and most lasting joys. Christ "hath abolished death." Death, the executioner of judgment, is no more to those who are in Christ, to those who do not wilfully put from them the inheritance which He won. Death, the angel-guide into "the place which he hath prepared," remains with us; the most blessed, the most benign of the angels, whose commission is to guide us home. Death, as a physical experience, a transformation, a translation, a change of form and place, remains with us, blessed be God! "for we who are in this earthly tabernacle do groan, being burdened." But there is nothing in this aspect to make him terrible; all that we know of the death which is around us in nature, and which physically we share still, though the spirit may be redeemed from its power, speaks to us of courage and hope. There is no destruction in the death of nature; nothing perishes, but that it may be reborn. All things die; "ashes to ashes, dust to dust," is the legend on the brow of every creature; but that dust is sacred; God fails not to rebuild it in fairer forms, and to nobler use. The dead leaves of autumn are the cloak of winter, and the nourishment of the germ of glorious spring; no material is dissolved but that it may reappear in braver aspect; no type is broken but that it may be recast in more heavenly moulds. Through death there has been a constant progress in the forms and aspects of creation. The huge, coarse, unwieldy types, which ruled of old in both the animal and vegetable worlds, have vanished, and out of their ashes the young phoenix of creation has sprung, which is the meet satellite of man. And why should we fear it? Why should we dread that the law which rules through the whole sphere of creation should stop with man, and that death which transfigures nature — the butterfly is surely something like the transfiguration of the

in me.

worm-must despoil and devastate the human world? Why, but because man is a spirit, and his spiritual relations are supreme, and they, if they are out of harmony with God, make dread and discord through all his sphere. Man, the child of God, need dread death as little as the creature, nay, as he sees the glory to which it can conduct him, he can rejoice, exult in the prospect, and strain to the embrace of death, as a child strains to a mother's bosom, or a pilgrim of long years, returning, strains forward to his home. And this is the counsel of God; to make the darkness of death beautiful with us; to make it the one way home; to show us that the progress is not rounded, but prolonged and completed, and that the increase is not gathered, but consecrated by death as the possession of eternity. The great witness of this is the living God-man, the elder brother of the family, in heaven. "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself: that where I am, there ye may be also. Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: : but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God. Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But I know, that even now, whatsoever Thou wilt ask of God, God will give it Thee. Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. Martha saith unto Him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life; he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? She saith unto Him, Yea, Lord: I believe that Thou art the Christ, the Son of

God, which should come into the world.

xx, 17; xi, 21-27.)

(John xiv, 1-3;

Death is dead. Life and immortality are brought to light by the Gospel. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." (1 Peter i, 3.) This witness of resurrection, this demonstration of the eternal life of the believer, underlies all others. I am about to speak of many precious subsidiary, auxiliary proofs which God gives us, but remember they all rest on this, from the truth of this they draw all their power. And I say that God is daily abolishing death and completing His purpose of enriching us-making us heirs of two worldsby gathering a band of dear ones, those whom our heart holds fast, on the further side of the river of death.

His great purpose is to make us live as the heirs of a heavenly kingdom, and bring eternity, the powers of the world to come, to bear on all that we do within the limits of sense and time. The man who lives for to-day, and seeks from the moment all his inspiration, and in the moment all his rewards, lives like a fool according to the Divine judgments : the wise man, the MAN, is he whose world is the great universe, and whose day is eternity. To bring heaven easily within our reach, God separates the bands-part have crossed the flood, part are on the hither side, approaching its margin, and the instinct of both tells them that they are one. Death is a revelation of life to those who can wisely look at it. Life never becomes earnest, sacred, solemn, as it was meant to be, until it has passed under the shadow of death.

I believe that a family lives but a half life as a family until it has sent its forerunners into the heavenly world. Until those who linger here for a time in thought can cross the river, and fold transfigured and glorious forms in the embrace of