the silver was cleared from any dross with which it might have been mixed. He promptly explained to her the manner of doing this. "But," said the inquirer, "do you sit, sir, at the work?" "Oh yes," he replied, “for I must keep my eyes steadily fixed on the furnace, since if the silver remain too long under the intense heat it is sure to be damaged." She at once saw the beauty and propriety of the image employed, "He shall sit as a refiner of silver;" and the moral of the illustration was equally obvious. As the lady was returning with the information to her expecting companions, the silversmith called her back, and said he had forgotten to mention one thing of importance, which was, that he only knew the exact instant when the purifying process was complete, by then seeing his own countenance in it. Again the spiritual meaning shone forth through the beautiful veil of the letter. When God sees his own image in his people, the work of sanctification is complete. It may be added, that the metal continues in a state of agitation till all the impurities are thrown off, and then it becomes quite still; a circumstance which heightens the exquisite analogy in this case; for, O, how

LXIV. RESURRECTION.

'Jesus said unto her, I am the Resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.'

John xi. 25.

IN what a beautiful and striking light does the Redeemer now stand before us! We have beheld him sustaining various offices. We have seen him in his sufferings. We have found all the prophecies. centering in him. And now we are to contemplate him as the Resurrection and the life; as the firstfruits of a glorious and universal harvest of all the sleeping dead. How grand! How interesting are all the circumstances! The title stands connected with the most astonishing miracle performed by our Lord during his ministry. He had in two previous instances raised the dead, but then the grave had

not covered its victims.

Hence, there was more

room to doubt the power of him who was the Resurrection and the life. The sisters had sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.' Yet, 'he abode two days still in the same place where he was.' 'After that he saith unto the disciples, Our friend Lazaru's sleepeth; but I go that I may awake him out of sleep.' 'When Jesus came, he found that he had lain in the grave four

days already.' And he now says,

'I am the Re

surrection and the life.' Then the sisters and the

mourning friends draw around the cold and silent grave, where reposed all that remained of a kind and affectionate brother. The sympathies of their friends were touched. The fountain of compassion burst forth. Jesus wept.' Precious words! Like balm to the wounded spirit; like a star breaking forth amidst the loneliness of night; like the silent dew upon the opening flower. How much is embraced in this single sentence; the shortest, yet the most touching in all the Scriptures! No wonder the Jews said, 'Behold how he loved him!' How amiable does the Saviour appear in every trait of his character, but especially in his sympathy for the afflicted and bereaved! What a Saviour did God promise to the world! What a moment of intense interest to the sisters; to the cause of Christianity, and to the world! What a bearing upon our ultimate destiny! Suppose a failure! How would the infidel have scoffed and triumphed, although it would have been over the grave of his own hopes; for who needs the consolations and pity of a Saviour more than those who have no pity for themselves? After a solemn prayer to the Being who gave him his power, he cries, with a loud voice, 'Lazarus, come forth! And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes, and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.' And the same voice will ultimately awaken all the sleeping dead, not to all the infirmities and ills of life, but to an immortal. existence !

But why is Jesus called the Resurrection and the life? It is not because he was the first to arise

from the dead, for there had been five resurrections previous to his own.* He was the first that rose to die no more; the first that rose to give others a pledge and assurance of their rising after him. This resurrection is the cause, the pattern, the pledge of our resurrection. In this sense, he is 'the First-fruits of them that slept;' 'the First-born from the dead.' The world now beholds a living demonstration of the resurrection of all the dead.. Hence the Apostle Peter says, '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, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you.'t Now 'we sorrow not even as others who have no hope; for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.'‡

In fine, Jesus broke the silence of the lonely chambers of death. He entered his dreary kingdom, for he afterwards declared to John the Revelator, 'I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.'S In short, as a fine writer says, 'And designing to pour forth a torrent of lustre on the life, the everlasting life of man, he did not bid the firmament cleave asunder, and the constellations of eternity shine out in their majesty, and dazzle and blind an overawed creation. He rose up a moral giant from his grave-clothes, and proving death vanquished

*See title FIRST-BORN FROM THE DEAD. Also FIRST-FRUITS. † 1 Peter i. 3, 4. 1 Thess. iv. 13, 14. § Rev. i. 18.

in his strong-hold, left the vacant sepulchre as a centre of light to the dwellers on this planet. He took not the suns and systems which crowd immensity, in order to form one brilliant cataract, which, rushing down in its glories, might sweep away darkness from the benighted race of the apostate. But he came forth from the tomb, masterful and victorious, and the place where he had lain became the focus of the rays of the long-hidden truth, and the fragments of his grave-stone were the stars from which flashed the immortality of man.'*

Brought up amidst the light and blessings of Christianity, it is difficult for us to conceive of the real value and worth of the doctrine of the Resurrection. If we could for a moment throw ourselves back amid the darkness of the ancient world, we might appreciate the great blessing. Let us enter the domestic circle. A loved one was removed. "The child was to its mother but as the frail vine that clambered around her door, and when death called. the one from her embrace, and winter nipped the other at its root, she no more hoped that the one would again bless her sight than that the other would again shade her window with its blossoms. There was an Elysium, the priests and poets said, but not for her, nor for any thing that belonged to her; the green land had no home for the fair creature from her bosom gone." She cherished its ashes in an urn, perhaps; and a meet emblem and sign it was of the fate of the innocent one; a meet emblem of dissolution and death, of grief that would

66

* Sermons by HENRY MELVILL. Vol. i., ser. v.