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"He is not dead: He is risen.”

A POET of our own day has sadly sung that "Christ is dead." He was alive once, when His name swept through the world, a resistless power: when Jew and Greek, Roman and Barbarian in turn felt His influence and bowed beneath His yoke. "He lived while we believed." But that mighty wave of emotion has ebbed, and now

"Now he is dead. Far hence he lies

In the lorn Syrian town,
And on his grave, with shining eyes,
The Syrian stars look down."

So speaks the mournful unbelief of this age. Faith has become chilled, and Hope has grown weary on her watch-tower. The Church bears little witness to the living Christ, Whose Name is named upon her. Men are beginning to look elsewhere for the brotherhood, for the worship, for the joy which she in the power of that Name was intended to bring. Christ is dead, they say: he can help us no farther.

In keeping our Easter festival we profess a faith in the very teeth of this doubt. If Christ be not raised, our faith is indeed vain, and we are yet in our sins. But now is Christ risen from the dead, and seated at the right hand of God. In Him is life, and light, and hope, and joy. In Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. He is present now by His Spirit to save and to bless. He is coming again in person to raise His sleeping ones, and to dwell with them and with us for ever.

This is our faith and in it believing we rejoice with

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joy unspeakable and full of glory. But can we not bear a more effectual witness of it to the world? Whatever the Church was set to do, we ought to be able to do most perfectly. For this end God has restored His ordinances, that in the reviving Body of Christ the witness to the Head may be seen.

Or are

And first, if Christ be truly alive, He must be seen living in us, who claim to be members of His Body. What is the life we are living? Is it one of worldly pleasure or of worldly ambition? Are our days a round of petty cares and ephemeral interests, innocent only in that they are free from the grosser sins? we content if we emulate the heathen virtues, if we are just and upright, imbued with a strong sense of duty, unblameable in our domestic and social relations? Christ need not have risen if this were all that God desired in His children. He rose to bring to man a new life, higher than anything that had been seen before:-the life of patience and meekness, the life of mercy and forgiveness, the life of love and sacrifice. Let men see such a life as this, with all its fruit of active helpfulness. Let them see it lived under no constraint of external law, with no attraction of future reward, but because the fountain within is ever bubbling, the fire within ever burning. Let them see it not in one here and there, but in every one of us-young men and maidens, old men and children -each according to his measure. And then let them hear from one and all the ascription-"Yes, we live nevertheless not we, but Christ liveth in us"—and a witness will have been borne which not many will be able to resist.

There is but one mightier, but one more convincing testimony that we can bear and we trust that we shall

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bear it soon. The power of His life within us must wax ever stronger and stronger, till at last its fleshly tabernacle shall feel its influence. 66 He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken our mortal bodies by His Spirit which dwelleth in us." The man-child shall be born: the sons of God manifested. Then will the

honest doubt depart, and the evil heart of unbelief be without excuse, when the risen Body stands forth to testify of its risen Head.

For ourselves, if the world must wait for physical demonstration, we will rejoice already in the assurance of faith. It is a thing to be thankful for every day that God has vouchsafed to this dim world of ours so lovely a vision as that of Jesus Christ. But our gratitude swells, and our trust deepens, when we believe that this most precious thing that earth has seen has not been allowed. to moulder in the dust. What blessed assurance as to our own dear dead, that we shall see each other face to face once more. No guess now of philosophy, no dream engendered of strong desire; but certain hope. "If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, then also them which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him."

O blessed Easter! We can wish for no better happiness than that our hearts shall be filled with its joy.

FIRST SUNDAY AFTER EASTER.

Faith in Christ Risen.

I John v. 4-12. John xx. 19-23.

It would seem from the Gospel appointed for to-day as though the Church could not leave those wonderful Easter hours, to which she looks back as the birthtime of her life and joy. The narrative of St. John, which was commenced on Easter Day, does not go on upon this First Sunday after Easter to the events of the corresponding eighth day after the Resurrection. It lingers rather upon the events of that Day itself. The angel has rolled away the stone, and He who was dead is alive again, and is risen and gone. The women have found the sepulchre empty; and Peter and John have confirmed their report. The two who walked to Emmaus have companied with their risen Lord, and have known Him when revealed in the breaking of bread. Before they have returned to Jerusalem with the joyful news, the Lord has appeared unto Simon Peter. And now, in the evening of the day, we see the Risen One coming into the midst of the eleven. We hear Him speaking peace, and pointing to the wounds which have made it:* we see Him breathing on His disciples, and expressing the meaning of His act

*Coloss. i. 20.

by the words, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost." We, like Thomas called Didymus, were not with them when Jesus came. But, receiving the witness of the men who have borne record of it, and also the witness of God by the Spirit, which is greater, we wait not to put our finger into the print of the nails, or to thrust our hand into His side. We inherit the blessing of them who have not seen, and yet have believed: by faith, and not by sight, we cry "My Lord and my God."

The blessedness of so believing is farther expressed by the Apostle Paul. "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." It is not enough to believe that men have put Him to death, even though it be by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. That would but prove that the guilt of our sin was so heinous, that the very Son of God, if He take our flesh, must take with it the wages of sin, which is death. It would prove the guilt; it would kindle remorse for it; but it would not bring repentance. Only the goodness of God can do this. And the goodness of God is not seen in giving His Son to die for us, until the "for us" is made manifest by His rising again. Christ be not raised, even though He have died, our faith is vain; we are yet in our sins. But if we believe in our heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, then indeed are we saved. We have seen Him fall lifeless under the burden of our guilt: but now to behold Him quickened again—what can it mean but that the burden is lifted, the guilt expiated, the sin forgiven? It is the Risen One who speaks peace. "Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again." Dying, He makes peace; but risen, He comes

If

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