istic philosophy, which attributes all mental phenomena to organization. It has no warrant in scripture, but is contrary to the express declarations of the Word of God. "This day shalt thou be with me in paradise." "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." “I have a desire to depart, and to be with Christ, which is far better." "We are willing, rather, to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord." How do these, and similar passages, comport with the view in question? Is paradise a state of unconsciousness? Is being with Christ-being with the Lord—a state of unconsciousness? Is Christ, then-is the Lord, then-in a state of unconsciousness? Is a state of unconsciousness either desirable or gainful to the good-better than to remain in the flesh, serving so good a Master, sharing so rich a bounty, expectant of so vast a reward? The doctrine is wholly unscriptural. Is it not equally unphilosophical? The intelligence of the soul proves its immateriality; but if the soul is immaterial, it is independent of its connection with matter, and its severance from matter cannot affect its consciousness. Consciousness, indeed, is the necessary condition of its being. An unconscious soul were an impossible conception. It were better to speak of an immaterial body. It were more rational to suppose an utter extinction of being. If the soul exists at all, it must exist in a state of consciousness. Unconsciousness were inanition. The present dullness of our consciousness—its frequent partial interruptions-result from the encumbrance of the soul's physical environments-the infirmities of the outer man. When this mortal coil" is "shuffled off," consciousness will be vivid and perfect far beyond all present experience. The last long sleep attaches only to the body; the soul must continue to think and feel, rejoice or suffer, when these now so active forms are cold and decaying in their tombs. Nor is death to be regarded as the final condition of the material organism. Sleep is nature's method of recuperation. He that sleeps shall awake with renewed vigor. The body is not to lie forever in the dust. The fallen and shattered tabernacle is to be reconstructed, glorious as the forms of angels, and imperishable as the tenant that has forsaken it for a season, to return to it forever. Must I argue this point? Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?" Does nature furnish no analogies? Heaven and earth are full of them "All bloom is fruit of death; Is pregnant with the spring-flowers of To-come, In the final recovery of the body from the wreck and ruin of the grave a greater achievement than the constant reproduction from decay of animal and vegetable life around us? Is it a more wonderful thing than the creation of the worlds-than its own original construction? Whatever the difficulty to human apprehension, nothing is difficult to Infinite Wisdom and Power. Who is it that saith-" I will redeem them from death, I will ransom them from the power of the grave?" It is he at whose word the teeming spheres rolled forth from the inane, and order arose singing out of chaos. Nay, it is he who promised to raise his own body, and did so, demonstrating his power to raise the bodies of his people. "The captain of our salvation," he has conquered the king of terrors, and led our captivity captive. He has "abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." The sleepers of a long night shall awake to an eternal day. The proper view of death--the death of God's servants, for we speak of no other-is that of retirement from labor, and of sweet and secure repose. David, having finished his work, "fell on sleep ;" and all the faithful departed are spoken of as "sleeping in Jesus ;" and the angel of the Apocalypse saith to the beloved John-" Write, from henceforth, blessed are the dead that die in the Lord; even so, saith the Spirit, for they rest from their labors, and their works do follow them." There is nothing here to be deprecated or dreaded. We lie down unfearing at night, expecting to rise refreshed in the morning. How welcome is rest to the weary husbandman, to the toilworn traveller, to the mariner after the storm, to the warrior after the battle. And what is there to fear in death? Guilt, indeed, may fear; for there is a dread hereafter of retribution. But what has the pardoned sinner to fear? What has the sanctified believer to fear? To him, dying is only falling asleep, and the grave is the bed in which he reposes after the toils of the day. a dies! > rest, eyes! ing breast! away; orms are o'er ; lay; shore. s the clay, combine to say, us when he dies!" .Tim. m. The beaded drops of death heavenly smiles play over his pallid sue from his quivering lips! He ing to hope. The blood of atonespirit of adoption is speaking in his approaching; but he is spoiled and ark valley; but he hears the voice of lly the staff and the rod. He hears eight forms are beckoning, and sweet Ile treads the chilling waters; but eet, while ministering angels haste to compass him about with songs of a is only a passage to paradise, a birth ection to a noble life rom sorrow freed, eward to return, A man is dead! A child is born!" aborer retires to his rest. The journey wers his home. The voyage is over, and ...e shore. The warfare is accomplished, his reward. It is the racer grasping the heir receiving his long-hoped-for forth to the festival of his coronation. Sore as the common lot of our kind. hers." We travel no unfrequented he earth." Adam himself returned to constitutes but one long funereal train, Mal. Every tick of the clock opens a new sepulchre. One human body sinks into the earth every second, sixty every minute, nearly four thousand every hour, nearly ninety thousand every day, more than six hundred thousand every week, more than two millions every month, about thirty millions every year, about three billions every century; and not less than a hundred and fifty billions--perhaps a hundred and seventy-five billions--a multitude which no mind can grasp--have disappeared in that all-devouring vortex since the first funeral was celebrated in sight of the gate of Paradise. Some forty or fifty have fallen asleep since we began this enumeration; and in thirty years more, a number equal to the entire present population of the globe, (amounting to ten hundred millions,) will have mingled with the dust. We shall not rest alone in the sepulchre. All the great and good of earth await us theresharers of the same mortality, expectants of the same resurrection. There is Abel, lying in his blood beneath his altar; and Noah, resting where they placed him, in the renovated earth, fresh from its diluvian baptism; and Abraham with his cherished Sarah; and Isaac with his beloved Rebecca; and Jacob, brought up from Egypt to be laid beside his Leah--all reposing in the cave of Macpelah, before Maure; and the pilgrim bones of Joseph in Shechem; and Aaron in Mount Hor; and Moses in Mount Nebo; and Joshua in Mount Ephraim; and Samuel in his house at Ramah; and the life-giving skeleton of Elisha, mingling with common dust. And the tombs of the prophets are filled with holy forms; and the sepulchres of the kings boast their royal tenantry; and the mangled corse of Stephen sleeps tranquilly; and the shattered head of James the Just is fearless of the fuller's club. And there, among the blessed sleepers, is Paul from the block; and Peter from the cross; and Polycarp from the stake; and Luther, safe from the rage of Rome and hell; and the heroic victims of the Inquisition; and the noble martyrs of Smithfield; and the Wesleys, the Fletchers, the Whitefields, the Summerfields, who have filled the world with their fame; and the Paysons, the Bascoms, the Olins, the Newtons, whose virtues still survive them, like the odors of flowers fresh fallen; and many a dear companion, with whom we have walked hand in hand along the rugged path of life, and stood side by side in its fierce battles; and eyes that looked on us so lovingly, closed in their long sleep; and tongues that made the music of our households, hushed till the resurrection; and ears in the charm of our discourse, insensible till they thrill to Aap God; and hearts that beat in unison with ours, still ......, they quicken with the pulse of immortality! All these de before us, and we haste to join them in the narrow house Our times are in God's hand; we know not when he N as from the field, but we know that he will not call us too er leave us too long. "The graves are ready for us "—God s or our graves! ees to us as a very humiliating event. David "saw cor must we. These tabernacles must be dissolved. These es are destined to decay. The worms will one day feast ar and delicate proportions, and revel amid the ruins of serted tenement. The beaming eye, the blooming cheek, ayam, the vigorous constitution, the most athletic speci ical humanity, must bow to the inevitable decree-" Dust dunto dust shalt thou return." But not forever! "For ay Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter earth; and though, after my skin, worms destroy this ay flesh shall I see God; whom I shall see for myself, shall behold, and not another, though my veins be con"If a man die, shall he live again? All the peated time [in the tomb] will I wait, till my change ange from corruption to incorruption.] time, [for waking,] and remember me. He shall ve and I will answer him [from beneath.] He shall He will God will not forget his At the summons of the the work of his hands." w them in the sepulchre. his banished ones' shall return to the joys of ..eccion. "For we are dead, and our life is hid with wcu Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall with him in glory." Our hope of a resurrection is the fact of his resurrection. He rose as our ་་ ... the first-fruits of them that slept." His ressurrection of our nature, and a pledge of the ace. He is "the head of the body," of which ver is a member; and the rising head must surely ter it. Thus, accurately, he is "the resurrecand we are "risen together with him"-"begothope by his resurrection from the dead." As |