tranquil than the Sailor's Home,'-a place of calm and enduring rest in the mansions of his Father's house above.

'I thought of those whose struggles all were o’er,
In the calm rest of God's untroubled sleep;
Of white-robed saints upon the tideless shore,
Where none may toil or weep.

And then I thought of that far better land,
From every storm and darkening tempest free,
Where never billow sobs upon the strand,
For there is no more sea.

Until I almost longed to be at rest

From life's exceeding sorrow and its care,
To join, even now, the anthems of the blest—
Their perfect gladness share!

But while I dreamed of God's eternal home,
Watching the shadows as they flitted by,
Voices all dear and earnest seemed to come
From out the grave and sky.

Bidding me work while it is called to-day;
To suffer, if He will, and so be strong;
To use His blessed gifts as best I may,
For no true life is long.'

"O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?'-1 COR. XV. 55.

N some respects it was a grievous shock and a bitter disappointment to surviving relatives, that the summons came to James Nisbet so suddenly. Yet, even here, it is not difficult to trace the hand of a Father; and the manner of his removal very forcibly suggests the remarkable words of the Divine Redeemer: 'He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.' Or as it is expressed in another passage, 'If a man keep my saying he shall never see death.'

And so it was with him. Death indeed came to him, but he did his work so quickly, that the sufferer was scarce sensible of the sting which he once dreaded; he was not required to walk with sad and

weary steps through the darkness which he once apprehended to be so dreadful, nor was he left to sink amid the deep waters, which he once feared would pass over his head and overwhelm his soul, nor was he summoned to any dread encounter with the last enemy, coming forth against him with all the ensigns of his terrible power, and with his crown, his sceptre, his ghastly visage, and his envenomed sting, triumphing over him in his last agonies.

From all that is involved in these terrific images he was mercifully exempted, and his passage through the dark valley was so rapid, and his translation into heaven so sudden, that if asked by any of his heavenly associates how it had fared with him at the close of life's eventful journey, or what experience he had had of the sharpness and bitterness of death, he might truly say, 'I was so covered with the shadow of the Saviour's wings, and so hidden in the hollow of the Saviour's hands, that when death came to me, I had no felt experience of his power, nor did the dark valley leave any ghastly recollections upon my heart. The enemy that I most dreaded in the land of the living I never saw. The darkness was absorbed by the immortality. The death was swallowed up by the victory.'

In the course of my ministerial experience, I have met with remarkable instances of this kind, and they have almost invariably occurred in the cases of the

very men, who, though believers in Christ, were, by constitutional temperament, very apprehensive about the final change. It indicates a remarkable peculiarity in the details of Christian experience, and I account for it in this way. The mere agony of dying was not in their case reserved for life's closing scene. They had been dying, as it were, by anticipation. The pins of the tabernacle had been loosening for a lengthened series of years. Even when in perfect health, they had been taking frequent excursions into the regions of the shadow of death. According to the emphatic declaration of the Bible, they had been dying daily, dying inch by inch, dying piecemeal. And long before they had reached the close of their journey, all that death is designed to accomplish had already been effected. In other words, they were crucified to the world; and being dead with Christ, they had risen to newness of life, and therefore, no further preparation was required. They were already ripe for glory. And when the summons came, theirs was like a translation. In the twinkling of an eye, and with perfect stillness and serenity, the soul quitted the mortal tabernacle, and without the opportunity or the necessity of saying, Farewell; but with girded loins, and the burning lamp, was, in a moment suddenly, and by a hand unseen, caught up into the brightness and blessedness of heaven.

To those only who are left behind, there remains

the legacy of grief; but, like all the legacies of earth, it lasts but for a little, and will soon pass away. For what is our life? It is even as a vapour—a thin cloud which appeareth for a little while-a cloud sometimes mantled in darkness, sometimes gilded with glory. Whether it be the one or the other, it has no endurance. It soon vanishes away. But the inner life of the Christian, the life of God in the soul, is not like a cloud that appeareth for a little while, and then vanisheth away. It is like a star, set in the firmament of a higher world; but it never goes out, like the flickering and the fading lights of earth. Continuously, and through all the watches of the great eternity, it waxes brighter and brighter, and shines on, undimmed and indestructible, for ever and

ever.

Therefore the great matter for every man, when mourning over the removal of beloved friends who, by faith and patience, are inheriting the promises of God, is to make sure for himself of a personal interest in Him who is the resurrection and the life. For in that case, he is not only certain of a blessed reunion with the friends who have fallen asleep in Jesus, but even now, when encompassed with the trials of this mortal life, and when all things around him are fading away and perishing, he can lay hold of the precious declaration: He that believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and