proclamation of highest dignity. He shall thus come in one crowning act, to finish His redemptive ministry, and "to gather together in one all things on earth and all in Heaven." He shall come, attended by the spirits of those who have tasted death. This is the essential point in the marvellous unfolding. The sleepers shall be led back with Him. Their dead bodies shall then arise. The redemption of the body shall be accomplished; the mortal shall become immortal; the natural shall give place to the spiritual; and then, the dead and living, one great army of the Redeemer, shall be united together, and shall be glorified according to the measure and in the order of the gift and grace of Christ. And the living saints shall be caught up by the overpowering might of God; and as riding on chariots of cloud, they shall ascend to the glad home of the Lord, in the heights of the universe; and so the mystery of redemption shall be finished and gloriously consummated, and redeemed humanity shall be "for ever with the Lord." 3. The revelation is that of the reunion of the dead and living in and with each other and the Lord. The resurrection completed itself, on the earthly side of it, when Jesus and the disciples met together again and renewed their intercourse, and He breathed upon them His peace. Their re-union crowned and graced the triumph over death and the grave. Love is stronger than death. Love broke through death and despoiled him. The broken circle was renewed, and Master and disciples were one again. They sat together at table again; they conversed together again. That is a picture and prophecy of the unseen state. So shall it be in the end of the days. It is the exceeding joy of the immortal blessedness; "We shall see Him as He is ;" we shall be with Him; there shall be immortal union between the immortal Head and the members. It shall be close, complete, joyous, everlasting; "I will come again and receive you to Myself that where I am there ye shall be also." But not only so, God will lead with Jesus those who sleep in Him when He comes again. There will be renewal of association, without which the renewal of life would be unmeaning. The pastor's converts are to be his joy and crown. Social breaches caused by death will be repaired. There will be no further separations of loving hearts. United to Him we shall form one holy, social circle around His table. There will be a joyous meeting again, and no more farewells will ever be spoken. When we fall asleep, we lose for the time parents and children, and husbands and wives, and fast and trusty friends;when we wake we shall find them again and keep them for ever. As death gives us to those who have gone before us, so the second coming of Christ will give us to those we leave behind us. The loves of the spirit, purified, without sensuous elements or selfish exclusiveness, shall clasp again the friends dearer than life; and after years of separation love shall be crowned in eternal union, and so shall we be "for ever with the Lord." What thrilling emotions must have rushed though the apostle's heart as he thought of those, who, according to the revelation of the Lord to him, would be survivors of death's reign on earth, and would behold the resurrection glory without themselves going down into the grave. Some day, when at home, or engaged in their usual avocation in world or church, they will look up and see the parted heavens and the triumphal train of the Conqueror returning for His own. And "Lo! the nations of the dead, Which do outnumber all earth's races, rise; Of the Eternal passing by." How glorious and perfect our Divine Redeemer is. How much He is to us now, but how much more He will be. The radiant glory of His matchless life is the centre of all power and blessedness of all rule and authority for all worlds. Christ on earth is all-in-all. Christ in Heaven is all-inall. How glad and certain the future is, and what an attraction it should have for Christian hearts. "The earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God." Heaven has received all the holy excellence of which death has robbed us. The great and good of all the ages and of every land are gathering together there, waiting for the end, and the new life of glory. All who have honoured Christ in labours for the race, the heroes of the land and the heroes of the Church, and the heroes of the home,--saintly sire, noble son, and the old man eloquent; the devout who bore our spirits on the wings of prayer into the Holiest of all; the unrecorded saints of the household,fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, children, the beauty of whose loving lives of sacrifice are a nobler monument than was ever raised in marble or enduring brass; the friends who were the light of our joys, the inspiration of our better hopes, the peace and strength of our hearts,-they are all gathered together unto Christ, and are awaiting our arrival and the glad end of victorious redemption. What a joy it will be to be there! Christ the King of Glory is Lord of death. He has death in His hands and under His power. He is working out great purposes by means of it. He will reach them and then cast it aside. "There shall be no more death." How wise and powerful, then, He must be. "All things shall be subdued unto Him." Death does not limit His power of blessing His own. Then see what a comforting assurance is hereby conveyed. If Christ rules the greater, He must rule the less. If death be in subjection, so must disease. The shattered nerve, the paralysed brain, the waste of the mental power of conveyance to the spirit and from it,-painful exceedingly to us who are debarred from helping the loved in their trial and from knowing that it is well with them, -are not painful, are not limiting hindrances to Jesus in His spiritual and redemptive ministries. Grace triumphs over physical decay. Christ has means and methods of reaching and helping spirits beyond our ken. He cannot fail because the brain has been overborne or weakened. Behind the kaleidoscopic changes which baffle and perplex, and harass us, He has His door of entrance; and the spirit He has redeemed, and who has trusted Him, is safe in His hands, cared for by His love, helped by His gracious power. If humanity were the measure of Divine salvation, who then could be saved? How glad and calm should our hearts be in the prospect of our future. He died for us that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him." The end is certain, what does it matter when or how we go? Lingering disease, rapid consumption, slow growing paralysis, weakened brain and heart, prolonging the agony; or sudden change, and without a word or sign, what does it matter? All are his messengers alike. We say of each "'Tis but the voice that Jesus sends, What then? why, should we be so anxious as we are about death bed experiences and last words? Tell me that a man has lived rightly, with Christ and for Him, and I care not how he dies. The life gives character to the death, not the death to the life. You may show us mumbling imbecility, the utter wreck of beauty and strength, but what of it-if before it came and drew the curtain and did the mischief, faith, and hope, and love, and service, were all in Christ and for Him? "We know that when the earthly house of the tabernacle is dissolved, lies in utter ruins, there is a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens," Let heaven be secure, and God may take me thither in a way of His own; a way dark and inscrutable to me and all my friends. Where He leads, none need fear to go. Where He is, there is safety. Only be ready. It does not matter whether from the forge, or office, or shop, or home, or ship, or yielding wave,-the road is direct to heaven, and sudden death shall be sudden glory. Only be ready! An unprepared heart is the only calamity. Only be ready! for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh. Only be ready! for those alone whose hearts are prepared and cleansed by Divine grace in Christ, can have that immediate communion with Him, which makes eternal blessedness sure. Only be ready! The day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night-without warning, without premonition of its approach. Only be ready! "Yet a season and we know EDITOR. Precious Faith. II. PETER i. I. "Like precious faith with us." Who are the two classes whose faith is here declared to be of equal worth? One answer may be that the " us means Peter and his brother apostles, and if so, then we have here a declaration of the substantial identity and equal value of the faith of all Christian people, whether they hold the highest office or fill the most undistinguished place in the Church. But more probably the two classes referred to here are the Gentile Christians to whom the letter was addressed, and the Jewish Christians, with whom Peter classes himself. He welcomes the "uncircumcision into the unity of the Church, and recognises them as possessors of the same faith, and, therefore, enriched with the same salvation. He is back again to the old lesson, which he learned on the house-top at Joppa, and in the house of Cornelius. It is the reiteration of his own argument, with which he had quieted the suspicions of the Church at Jerusalem when they heard of his baptism of a Gentile. The words suggest some not unimportant points, which throw light upon faith, especially in regard to its object, its value, and its substantial identity under its most different forms. I. THE OBJECT OF FAITH. The authorised version reads, "Through the righteousness of God and of our Saviour Jesus Christ." But the Revised Version more accurately "in the righteousness." The former rendering is admissible. But it is less satisfactory than the other, which regards the righteousness as being the object of faith. Now the object of faith is said in the New Testament to be Jesus Christ. He, the personal Christ, is the true and proper object of faith. Faith is trust, and the object of trust must be a person. Christ Himself, in the sweetness and graciousness of His character, in the sacrifice of His death, and in the glory of His risen life, we trust, and by trusting in Him we live. Faith in Christ is strictly parallel with our trust in one another. It is the very same thing which knits us to Christ, and to God in Christ, as that which knits us to one another. The same confidence with which we in our families safely trust in the love and truth of a wife or husband, friend or child, when directed to Jesus Christ becomes the spring and the heart of all religion. The trust with which we lean upon the bruised reeds of human help is the same as that with which we lean upon the iron pillar of a Saviour's aid. That being understood, then comes the importance of the words of the text. The whole question is :-What Christ is it that you are trusting in, and what is it that you are trusting to Him for? So, in order to make definite the vagueness which may attach to the thought of faith in a person, unless we declare what the person is, we have to keep in view such sayings as these: The apostle Paul speaks of "faith in His blood," and Peter here speaks of "faith in the righteousness of God and Christ." If we take these two definitions of the object of faith, they explain what true faith in Christ is to lay hold of. If you are truly trusting in Christ you are trusting in His blood; if you are truly trusting in Christ you are trusting in His righteousness. There is much need, in these days, when so much foolish impatience of doctrine has crept into the professing Church, and when some men are so afraid of anything that savours of that great truth of a dying Christ, Whose blood is our righteousness, of reminding you that not only must your faith grasp Jesus, but that your faith must grasp this Jesus-the Jesus that died for our sins and was raised again for our justification. II. THE WORTH OF THIS FAITH. What is the value of faith? Why is it so precious? Christ Himself, Christ's blood and God's great promises, are precious by virtue of their own inherent value. Faith is precious in altogether a different way, it has no inherent value. It is only precious because of that which it lays hold of. So that is the first item in the preciousness of faith, its worth as a channel. You remember that in one verse we read about the door of faith. What is the worth of a door? It admits. So faith is precious, not because of anything in itself, but because of what it admits into your heart. Just as the hand of a dyer that has been working with crimson will be crimson; just as the hand that has been holding fragrant perfumes will be perfumed; so my faith, which is only the hand by which I lay hold upon my precious things, will take the tincture and the fragrance of what it grasps. The grasping of the poles of the electric battery, is nothing in itself, but it brings me into contact with the quick and quickening impulse. Faith brings all riches to me, and therefore is itself gilded with some reflection of their lustre, aud partakes of their preciousness. We read of the Shield of Faith. How is faith valuable as a shield? Has it any power of protection in itself? A man may have an obstinate confidence, which is misplaced, and may lull him into a fatal security. I do not become safe by believing myself to be so, however strong may be the imagination or the fancy. All depends upon what it is that I am relying on. So then, faith is no shield in itself. "The Lord God is a Sun and Shield." Thrust your arm, howsoever feeble it may be, through the handles of that great Buckler, and hide yourself behind Him, and "He will cover your head in the day of battle." 2. Faith is a purifier. When Peter had to defend himself before the Church in Jerusalem, his one plea was, "God . . . put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith." But how does faith purify? Is there anything in my confidence which will make me pure? No! there is no moral efficacy in the mere act of trust. All depends upon what it is that you are trusting. You will become like what you are trusting. If you are trusting to money you will get jaundiced with it; if you are trusting to creatures the great law will come true about you which has determined the degradation of all idolatrous nations: " They that make them are like unto them, so is everyone that trusteth in them." As the man's trust, so will the man one day become. The only faith that purifies is faith in Him that is pure; so my faith makes me clean only in the measure in which, and because, it joins me to the Christ Who Himself is righteous, and gives me possession of all the motives to purify which the gift of His Spirit can bring. III. THE SUBSTANTIAL IDENTITY, AND EQUAL PRECIOUSNESS OF Faith If we adopt the view that the apostle is here declaring, that the faith of the Gentile Christian is equally preci ous with that of the Jew, the door is opened for the recognition of the oneness of faith under the extremest differences of form. There is no such gulf between any two sects of Christians who have faith in the blood and righteousness of Christ, as there was between the Gentile and the Jewish sections of the Primitive Church. Two men who both alike, are trusting to Jesus Christ as their Saviour, and who are most unlike each other in all other respects, in creed, in culture, in general outlook on the world, in disposition and character, are liker each other than a Christian man and a nonChristian, who in all particulars except their faith are like twins. But beware of the lazy charity, socalled, which is often mere poisonous indifference to truth. The widest charity has no vagueness; all that love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity are one, but it must be the Lord Jesus Christ that they love. And then, there is substantial identity of faith nnder all degrees of attainment. Each tiny particle of a magnet, if it be smitten off the whole mass, is magnetic, and sends out influence from its two little poles. And so the smallest and the feeblest faith is one in character, and one in intrinsic value with the loftiest and superbest. Therefore seeing that we may all have that faith which whether it be as a grain of mustard-seed or whether it be grown to be greater than all herbs, is yet one in its mysterious life, seeing that we may all possess it, and that there are infinitely various degrees in which we may possess it, and consequently infinite increase possible in the good things it brings to us, let us all take that old prayer, and with it the always appropriate confession, "Lord! I believe, help Thou my unbelief." And then, like this very apostle, if, |