"By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God. But without faith it was impossible to please him." "Strong as the rushing waves that roll Over the flood-gates in a storm, The rapture overflowed his soul, Gushed over eyes and face and form; Until his form became so fair, With tranced eyes that shone like stars, Oh, golden cars! oh, glittering stairs! Rapt in transporting ecstacy! * When the next morning crossed the hills Through nature's lyres, the people missed The calm old face that used to beam So calm, so bright, 'twould almost seem They marvelled, till the evening; Conjectures passed, and were forgot; A wonder and a whispering, 'He walked with God: and he is not." E. B. THE TRANSLATION OF ENOCH. This translation not surprising in view of his characterHow and when it took place-Significant-To himself, a dispensation of mercy, and a mark of honour-To his neighbours, a corroboration of his instructions and warnings-To ourselves, a commendation of his faith. AFT FTER the testimony borne to the life of Enoch, his translation scarcely surprises us. We almost look for some such apotheosis of his exalted virtues. If the obedience of the first man would have exempted him from the stroke of death, the spirit of the Divine threatening, which pronounces death upon all his posterity, will not be falsified if to one so obedient and devout as Enoch be granted a similar exemption. Already he has more of the celestial than the earthly in his character; and is more fit to be the companion of angels than to associate with an apostate race. Even the outer nature has experienced the transforming influence of a long course of faith and devotion. Refined and purified beyond the ordinary state of a mortal body, we can conceive of it as fitly entering on immortality without undergoing the purification which death effects. Through a less trying ordeal it may soar to its place among the sons of God; and our moral sense is not shocked when such a superhuman reward is granted to one possessed of such superhuman excellence. Heaven must attract towards itself that which so much resembles itself. And what if the attraction be so strong, that the process of dying and the long waiting for the resurrection be dispensed with, and Heaven at once takes to itself that which is so manifestly its own? What is it but natural if at once the message comes "Come up, beloved! wide the gates Are open, and the glory streams Glory on glory." Although permitted to enter heaven by a path different from that which ordinary mortals tread, his body would no doubt undergo the change necessary to fit it for the kingdom into which flesh and blood cannot enter-a change, in all probability, similar to that which takes place in the bodies of the saints who are alive at the coming of the Lord, and which, by a different process, will bring them into the same state as that of the resurrection body, which " sown in corruption, is raised in incorruption; sown in dishonour, is raised in glory; sown a natural body, is raised a spiritual body." How the change will be effected, or what will be the nature of the body we are not informed, and cannot judge. But the fact, "There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body," is presented to our faith, and it would be absurd for us to reject it as untrue because it surpasses our comprehension. Though the Scriptures do not gratify our curiosity, we learn from them all that is necessary to our comfort, when they intimate that the spiritual body will not be subject to decay, that it is invincible to corruption, invested with immortality, and in harmony with that place of whose inhabitants it is said, "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and The Spiritual Body. 97 there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things have passed away." We have no account of how or where Enoch's translation took place. But a crowd of conjectures come rushing upon us, which we find it pleasing to entertain. Perhaps it was promised before as the reward of his holiness, and that his faith in the promise might sustain him under his trials. In that case it would be a long-expected, much-desired event. Or, perhaps, it was unexpected, and he was ignorant of what was taking place until the glories of heaven burst upon his view, and he found himself surrounded with the heavenly hosts. It might be that while surveying the works of nature, and meditating on the marks of God's glory which they displayed, he was removed to gaze on lovelier scenes and brighter manifestations. But the conjecture most pleasing to us is that it was while he was entranced in devotion. When his soul left the world for awhile and soared upward to hold intercourse with God, so that he talked with Him as a man with his friend, when loth to disturb the vision and return to battle with the cares, and to be pained with the wickedness of the world, his body rises too, caught up by an invisible power, changing as it ascends, shaking off its grossness and corruption, until it becomes pure as the home to which it hastens, the meet companion of those angelic bands who welcome its entrance amid the splendour and the music and the joy of heaven. Whether it came thus, or otherwise, is of small consequence. Come when and how it might, the transition must have been unspeakably glorious. Who can estimate the overwhelming rapture of the patriarch when he rose triumphantly from earth; when the eye, which just now had wept over the wickedness of men, beheld the glories of heaven; and the ear, pained H |