IN CHRIST: dying in Him who trod the death-realm before us;-dying in Him who tasted death, that whether we live or die, unclothed, we should sympathy and love." 1 in the Easter triumph of the ever-memorable morning, when at the entrance to His tomb "the stone was rolled away;"-the glorious evidence that He had risen. They thereby received a pledge of their own resurrection-life-their own triumph over death:-" He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies" (Rom. viii. II). To revert to that other familiar and significant simile of our Apostle we have already alluded to in a recent chapter—the Redeemer was "the first-fruits of them that slept " (1 Cor. xv. 20). We there saw that as the earliest gatherings of the fields of Palestine were of old carried with pomp and joy to the Jewish temple, and waved as an offering before the Lord,—the pledge alike of coming vintage and harvest: So has Christ-the first sheaf of the immortal harvest-been taken to the heavenly altar-courts-the earnest of the fruit of His own soul-travail yet to follow. "I myself cannot die. I live in Christ; and though, at His call, I may enter on a new and untried state of being, I shall but part with my earthly tenement, as a bird escaped from the snare of the fowler,' to rejoice in my deliverance

whether we remain clothed or never be separate from His His people were one with Him

1 "Destiny of the Creature," p. 73.

from a cumbrous body, that clogs the free and full exercise of all my powers. As the husk of the chry

salis I shall cast it aside, and rise out of it to soar above the dark clouds and mists of earth into the pure and serene atmosphere of heaven, where dwell only those who are holy and heavenly-the perfected spirits of the redeemed.1"

1 "Memorials of a Quiet Life," ii. 290.

IN HOC VINCES

*

XVI.

THE DEAD IN CHRIST.

"The dead IN CHRIST."-1 Thess. iv. 16.

"Them also which sleep IN JESUS."-1 Thess. iv. 14.

ET us pursue these thoughts a little further.

"The dead IN CHRIST"-" Asleep IN JESUS."

Yes, so thoroughly has Jesus conquered death by His own dying, that He is said, in the Apostle's emphatic words, to have "abolished death." He has flooded the dark valley with light for His departing people. He has converted its gloomy rolling mists into golden clouds, opening vistas into Paradise.

"For them the silver ladder shall be set,

Their Saviour shall receive their latest breath;

They travel to a fadeless coronet,

Up through the Gate of death."

Matthew Henry well calls death "a parenthesis in the believer's history." Being already IN CHRIST, their removal implies not really a change of state, but only a change of locality,—a glorious step in the law of endless development-the presence and love of Christ

A. A. Proctor.

now enjoyed by faith, then enjoyed by sight in full beatific vision and fruition. The prayer of Stephen is

the death-song of every true saint: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." "I myself cannot die," to quote again from the records of the same saintly life as in the preceding meditation, "I live in Christ; and though at His call I may enter on a new and untried state of being, I shall but part with my earthly tenement, as a bird escaped from the snare of the fowler,' to rejoice in my deliverance from a cumbrous body, that clogs the free and full exercise of all my powers. As the husk of the chrysalis I shall cast it aside, and rise out of it to soar above the dark clouds and mists of earth into the pure and serene atmosphere of heaven, where dwell only those who are holy and heavenly— the perfected spirits of the redeemed.”

Those who have been in Rome will remember that the Via Sacra (the highway for the ancient laurelwreathed conquerors leading to the Capitol, with the Temple of Jupiter crowning its summit) is not very far distant from the Catacomb of St. Calixtus, of which we have already frequently spoken. Death, to believers, is the true Via Sacra, with its triumphal arch conducting to the heavenly Temple, and to the presence of the enthroned King, who is Himself the crown and consummation of their bliss: from His lips to receive the welcome of the fulfilled promise"To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and am

I

set down with My Father in His throne" (Rev. iii. 21).

IN

(1.) Then, as regards our own departure. If “ CHRIST:-"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." Voltaire, in one of his letters, says, "I hate life, and yet I am afraid to die." Contrast this with the Christian's experience, as interpreted by St. Paul: "Whether we wake or sleep," whether we continue on earth, or fall asleep on our death-pillow, "we shall live together with Him” (1 Thess. v. 10). In Christ and with Christ; this is, in brief, the history of the believer's limitless future. The Bible picture of heaven is not merely the negative one, of deliverance from the ills of life, the ending of the long-drawn sigh and wail of humanity; but it is the positive enjoyment of the Redeemer's Presence. Here is the morning which follows the night of earth: "What time I awake, I am still with THEE!" We have lately quoted Luther's words of solace over his loved child;-appropriate was the closing prayer at his own deathbed-"O heavenly Father, though I must resign my body, and be borne away from this life, I know that I shall be with Thee for ever!'

When the many thousands of Israel crossed of old the Jordan the waters standing up as a wall on either side, and they marched dry-shod through the channel— every eye was directed to the sacred symbol preceding them. So of the Great Antitype it may be said, as His people pass through the darksome river of which