so tender, but say, they are; they are His, and they are mine.

What a little thing death becomes when we can realize this! The very resurrection is almost ante-dated. When we have now that unbroken fellowship, if we cannot say yet that the victory over the grave is come, we can say that "the sting of death" is extracted. And so it will all come in its proper order. Now, "O death, I am thy plagues;" and in due time, "O grave, I will be thy destruction."

Are they further off than they were? They are nearer. Do they love us less? They love us more. Is the communion weaker? It is more complete.

"Believest thou this?"

"Believest thou this ?" Christ said to Martha when He had been preaching to her the unanimity of death. And well might I ask here. For it is a very hard thing to grasp; none know how hard but those who have stood where Martha stood, and wept where Martha wept. There is that stern reality in death when it comes, to the outer sense, that there is not a higher exercise of faith required of man than to feel that in the gospel of Christ, death has ceased to be.

And yet you do believe in the invisible things of God. You do believe, and you never doubt, that though you do not see Him, Christ lives; and that He lives with you, and that He lives in you, and that He lives for you. What is that Christ? He is a mystical body,—that body makes His completeness and His being,-and that body is His saints. And they live with Him, and they live in Him, and they live for Him. And therefore, where He is, they are; what He does, they do; what He feels, they feel;

His life is their life; His presence is their presence. By the same tenure, they hold it all.

Then, where is your faith, mourners, where is your faith? Has not He said, "I am the resurrection and the life he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die?" And yet, now, as then, Christ asks it, and He has too much cause to ask it," Believest thou this?"

XVI.

Gradual Revelations.

"I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now."-JOHN xvi. 12.

I1

T must have been a real grief to our blessed Saviour to have "many things,"-important things,-things most dear to Him,-things of which He best knew the value, to tell those with whom He was living every day, and whom He loved so much, and yet to feel obliged to lock them all up in His own breast. For His was the most open, expansive heart that ever beat in human form; He had no joy which was not His people's joy. And if to any generous man it is a pain to have a secret which he cannot divulge, though it must increase another's happiness,—and if it is a sad thing to have to go out of this world without saying what we wish to say for the good of those we leave behind us,-what must Christ have felt, when, just on the eve of leaving those beloved ones with whom He had lived for years, He was still compelled to say, "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now."

It is very touching to observe the course His thoughts took for comfort at that moment. Howbeit, when He the Spirit of truth is come, He will guide you,”—the expression shows the gentle way in which the Spirit acts, "He will guide you into all truth."

And when the Spirit

shall be teaching them, long after He was gone, the Saviour seems to have loved to think that it will be just the same as if He was doing it Himself, for, "He shall glorify Me: for He shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you." How true all this is to the best feelings of our nature!

Now the thought which our Saviour expressed was in strict accordance with His whole method of life. He was always measuring what and how much His followers could bear, for He was that true Wisdom which cometh down from above, and is always gentle.

Once upon a time, some came and found fault, and said, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft, but Thy disciples fast not?" Jesus answered that "the days would come' presently, when they would fast; but not now; to command it now would grate too roughly upon their joyous expectations: "but the days will come when the Bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast." "No man putteth new wine into old bottles." There must be a fitness in the mind, first, before it can receive a doctrine. It is no use to attempt a new life upon old feelings, "But new wine must be put into new bottles, and both are preserved." "I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now."

In the same kind thoughtfulness it was, that at the beginning of His ministry, He said little or nothing to His disciples about His own sufferings and death. But indeed, as His discourse goes on, you may remark that they gradually entered more and more into the deeper mysteries of truth. For example, the Second Advent is a doctrine reserved entirely for the close of His teaching. Well might the apostle say, "We beseech you by the gentleness

of Christ." For if it was true of Paul, how much truer of Him, "We were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children."

And here, brethren, let us notice the blessedness of having the mind placed under God's own direct teaching. The great power of a teacher lies in being able to have sympathy with the mind of his scholar. If he want this, whatever else he has, he will be sometimes too much below, and sometimes too much above, the understanding and the attainments of the person he teaches. We have all felt, and felt painfully, what it is, when under any human instruction, to be urged on too quickly. We have probably known it in our spiritual life. As we have grown in grace and knowledge, we have often looked back upon some past stages, and said, "I was pressed too prematurely; that book that was put into my hands was too difficult for me at that stage; that doctrine was too deep for me then; I see it now, but I did not see it at the time; if I had waited till I had grown to a little higher standard, I should have been prepared to receive it, but the truth failed in its power, was actually injurious to me, because there was not then the necessary adaptation in my mind to contain it." God's teaching never does that. He, knowing exactly the real state and power of every one's heart, marvellously suits the lesson to the capacity, and leads on as we can bear it. The child has the child's milk, and the giant has the giant's meat. This is what makes it such an exceedingly pleasant thing to sit under God's own silent teaching,—as in some morning or evening hour, when we are alone with our Bibles, in those prayerful, dew-like seasons which we all know. There is such a delicacy; and it is so grateful; there is such an exact pro