And God has different work for his several servants--different spheres of action and of influence. In the church, some are to serve in the ministry of the Word, and others in inferior offices; some to feed the flock of God, and others to supply the temporal needs of the shepherd; some (like Moses) to pray upon the mountain, and others (like Aaron and Hur) to hold up the suppliant's hands; this one being "set for the defence of the gospel," and that one for the government of the church; this for the edification of saints, and that for the admonition of sinners; this for binding up the broken heart of penitence, and that for cheering the departing soul "through the valley of the shadow of death." Others are to operate in far different spheres and relations--in civil and municipal affairs, and the common business of life. One as the advocate, another as the judge; one as the physician, another as the teacher; one as the mechanic, another as the merchant; one as the philosopher, another as the laborer; one as the tiller of the soil, another as the plower of the seas; one as the pioneer of discovery, another as the oracle of state; one as the guardian of our liberties, another as the administrator of our laws. But in these several positions and activities we are to be governed by a supreme regard for the will of God. We may not choose our own calling without reference to the Divine designation, nor direct ourselves in its prosecution without seeking the guidance of a Heavenly Wisdom. And in all our relations we are to "let our light shine before men, so that they may see our good works, and glorify our Father who is in heaven." By a consistent and holy example we are to be constant witnesses for God-our lives a perpetual testimony to the truth, a hymn of praise to the Redeemer, a reproof to the ungodly, an encouragement to the pious, and a source of instruction to all.

And perhaps we are often as useful in suffering as in laboring. Christ accomplished no less for the good of others and the glory of God when he was led up into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil, than when he traversed the hills and plains of Judea destroying the works of the devil; no less when he delivered himself up as a lamb for the slaughter, than when he magnified his mighty prerogatives as "the Lion of the tribe of Judah ;" no less in the Garden and on the Cross, than by the evacuation of the tomb and the return to heaven. And so his servants are often most efficient when they appear most passive--doing most for their Master's cause when they

seem to be only suffering His will; and doing or suffering, they are serving their own generation by the will of God.

This, then, is the rule-the motive-of all benevolent action-a supreme regard for the will of God. We are to do the work assigned us, not because it is easy or pleasant, not because it is profitable or honorable, nor primarily because it is essential to our salvation; but chiefly, if not simply, because it is the will of God. A sufficient impulse should be our respect for His sovereign authority; but this impulse is strengthened by gratitude and love; and we know that God's will is always just and right-the highest wisdom and the purest goodness; and that in all His requirements He consults the largest and most lasting interest of His rational and immortal creatures. Influenced by these considerations and sentiments, we merge our wills in God's; and God's will becomes our law; and His commandments are not grievous; but His yoke is easy, and His burden is light; and toil, and hardship, and danger, and sacrifice, are not only alleviated, but rendered positively delightful; and the pleasantness of the work is scarcely transcended by the hope of the reward; and all anxiety about the length of the service is lost in the zest of the pursuit; and though we "desire to depart and be with Christ," we are content to remain and serve our own generation by the will of God.

Such, my brethren, is the true aim of life. Let us keep it in memory, while we go on to consider,—

II. The Proper View of Death.

There is an intimate connection. Life is the way; death is the end. Life is the race; death is the goal. Life is the pilgrimage; death is the terminus. Life is the day for toil; death is the night for repose. Life is the vineyard and the harvest; death is the laborer's sweet release. Life is the dusty march and the stormy battle; death is the warrior's welcome home. When, like David, we shall have served our own generation by the will of God, like David, we shall fall on sleep, and be laid unto our fathers, and see corruption.

Let it be observed, that the death here described is the death of a good man-one of the best that ever lived. In death, as in life, we must "discern between the righteous and the wicked." Death is the "one event" that "happeneth to all;" but not to all alike. Very

different is it to the saint and the sinner-very different in its aspects -very different in its issues. In the remarks which follow, we refer only to the death of those who serve their own generation by the will of God, for to such only comes the last great change with the calmness and security of a sleep.

God's view of death does not teach us to regard it as the end of our existence. He who sleeps still lives. There is a suspension of his voluntary activities, but no cessation of the vital functions. It is only the body that sleeps; the soul is ever wakeful. The body sleeps because it is weary, and needs refreshment; the soul knows no fatigue, and demands no repose. We say the mind flags, or the spirit faints; but we speak unphilosophically. The material organism, through which the soul acts upon the external world, may tire and halt; the soul itself, not subject to physical laws, remains always vigorous and active. Sleep, then, is only the state of the outer man; who can say that death is anything more-that it affects the thinking, conscious soul--that it produces any change, except in the mere mode and circumstances of our being?

True, we see not the unbodied soul. What then? There are a thousand other things that we have never seen, though we readily admit their existence. Some of these are the most pervading and the most powerful agencies in nature. What say you of air, caloric, electricity? Do you doubt their existence because you do not see them? And why doubt the continued existence of the soul because, separate from the body, it is invisible? It is invisible now, in connection with the body; and if you infer its future non-existence because it is then invisible, you should infer its present non-existence because it is now invisible. The argument against its future existence bears equally against its present existence. There is as much evidence of the continued being of man, separate from the material organism, as of a thousand other existences that are never questioned.

Say not that what we call the soul is the result of a wondrous organization, and must cease with the dissolution of the body. That organized bodies can possess no powers which are not inherent in the elements of which they are composed, is an important axiom in phi1osophy; that the elements of the human frame are incapable of intelligence, consciousness, volition, is a proposition of which no proof will be demanded; and that mere organization can never originate mental phenomena, is the obvious and inevitable con lusion. Nay,

"there is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding." This curious frame is only the tenement of the rational soul, and that soul is doubtless immortal. Destined by its Creator to perish, He would probably have revealed that destiny; but He has given us no such information--has nowhere intimated such an issue.

To establish the proposition that the soul dies with the body, infidelity must furnish proof, and that proof must be clear and ample; but infidelity has no proof to offer-infidelity is. nothing better than a negation without a reason--a mere blind conjecture. The doctrine, at best, is only an opinion of my neighbor; why is not my opinion. worth as much as his? Nay, is it not more rational and philosophical? I now exist; and, in the absence of any proof to the contrary, the presumption is just, that I shall continue to exist forever. Nature utters no negative to my hope. All analogy is in favor of my perpetual being. Change is constant, and manifold, and universal; annihilation is an event unknown in nature.

The very constitution of man--his interior consciousness, his sense of responsibility, his self-upbraiding for guilty deeds, his apprehension of a righteous retribution, his capability of indefinite improvement, his natural dread of annihilation, and his strong aspirations. after a higher destiny-all give evidence of the life to come.

"Say, whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,

This longing after immortality?

Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror,

Of falling into nought? Why shrinks the soul

Back on herself, and startles at destruction?

'Tis the Divinity that stirs within us;

'Tis Heaven itself, that points out an hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man!"

Nay, is not the soul naturally immortal? Is not immortality an element of its very constitution? The body is composed of parts, and these parts may be divided and dissolved; the soul is a simple substance, indivisible and indissoluble, and can perish only by the fiat of its Creator. The body is constantly changing--constantly increasing or decreasing; the soul remains the same under all the diversified phenomena of its manifestation--maintains an uninterrupted consciousness of its identity, through all the stages of its progress, and amidst all the accidents and vicissitudes of its outer

life. Its conscious identity proves its spirituality, and its spirituality is the basis of its inmortality. It can be destroyed only by the Power that made it. And why should He destroy the noblest of His creations? Did He not make it for an important end? And shall He thwart His own purpose, or leave His design unfinished? Who can say that man, like the moth, attains his end in this brief period of existence? And if not-if he is capable of moving in a larger and loftier sphere-if, having learned all that this world can teach him, he still longs and struggles for vaster acquisitions of knowledge -another life is necessary, for the development of his powers, and the completion of the Almighty's plan; and, if there is no future being, man is an abortion-" a monster in the eternal order," and there is no discoverable wisdom or goodness in his Creator's economy.

Thus, we establish a very strong presumption of human immortality. This presumption is corroborated by the general sense of mankind. Whence the prevalent opinion, in all nations, in all ages--an opinion to which all worships, all poesies, all traditions, bear witness -that the soul lives when the body dies? Either it is an original impression, or it is a deduction of reason, or it is a revelation from God. There is no other assignable source of the idea. In either case the argument is conclusive. If it is an original impression, God himself must have given that impression, inweaving the sentiment of immortality with our very constitution, and that sentiment cannot be false. If it is a deduction of reason, there must be sufficient evidence to warrant that deduction by the great mass of mankind, and, in the face of such evidence, it must be highly irrational to reject the doctrine. If it is a revelation from God, that revelation has been sufficient to satisfy the world for nearly six thousand years, and there is now no room for controversy, nor excuse for unbelief. So that, whichever hypothesis you adopt, this always and everywhere prevalent opinion of mankind constitutes an irrefutable argument for the immortality of the soul; and in connection with the present manifest incompleteness of the Divine retribution, the unequal distribution of good and ill, and the decisive testimony of Scripture, forbids our regarding death as the terminus of our being.

Neither does God's account of death represent it as a state of unconsciousness. Consciousness continues in sleep, and sleep often but intensifies consciousness. The doctrine that death is a suspension or a cessation of consciousness was invented to accommodate the material