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and remembering that "the long-suffering of God" should lead us to repentance, may he consider for what he himself was left, when his brother was taken, and in penitence and faith may he begin a holier and a safer life!

There is something very striking in the circumstance of these miserable men having fallen near the chaplain's tent. This chaplain is a good and earnest man, and had been unwearied in his endeavours to support and cheer the spirits of the soldiers during this season of sickness. How often, no doubt, had he warned the healthy against the very sin which these brothers had been guilty of! The sin of drunkenness, it is well known, makes a man especially liable to an attack of cholera. No doubt, too, that he besought those who were thus living in the midst of danger, and with death on every side of them, to consider how far they were prepared to hear the sentence of God, "This night thy soul shall be required of thee." As the tree falls, so it must lie, whether cut down by cholera, or by drunkenness, or by any more common accident. The ways of God are often mysterious, but they always have a wise and good end in view. In this case the manner of death mattered little to the soul thus cut off; but we may well believe that to the living brother the difference was great. He would probably have thought much less of it if his brother had died, like so many of his comrades, of cholera; but no, it was not disease, it was not accident, which had stretched his brother lifeless by his side. He cannot but feel how much more terrible-and almost, one might think, irresistible the warning was, when the very sin which he had joined, and perhaps encouraged, his brother in committing, was, as it were, the sword by which he was slain. Surely so terrible a warning may be useful to every one of us, especially at this time, when the pestilence which has cut down so many in our distant armies is abroad among us also.

The letter goes on to say that the Holy Communion was to be administered the next Sunday, August 27th, and that many were preparing to receive the blessed pledges of salvation and life eternal, which in that holy sacrament are given to every faithful member of the

Church of Christ. This is indeed a preparation which it rejoices the hearts of those at home to hear of. A little month from that time, and the army will probably be in active service, and many hundreds of those who by God's mercy have yet time and opportunity for repentance may then be numbered, in an instant, among the dead. "To-day," as the Holy Ghost saith, "To-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts." Heb. iii. 7, 8. Let each one of us take to himself this warning of the Apostle, and in the very words of our blessed Master and Redeemer let us answer every temptation to evil : "I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work." John ix. 4. Sent by T. H.

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[The remark at the conclusion of the above letter has been strikingly verified: "A little month," from the time of which it speaks, and the battle of the Alma was fought, and hundreds numbered with the dead. That communion was the last, probably, of which the army had had the opportunity of partaking. Let us hope that many of those who have fallen were among those who on that occasion received the blessed pledges of salvation and life eternal.-ED.]

LIFE IN DEATH.

In our last Number, while meditating on the state of the departed spirit, we considered it first as a state of rest,rest from the labours and the sorrows and the cares of this world. Looking into Holy Scripture, that treasury of all knowledge, we found several texts to support us in this natural view of death, and we further learned that the rest of the departed soul is not a rest of unconscious slumber; the soul is not in a state of insensibility while it is separated from the body. Let us now follow up this thought, and see what more can be learned.

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St. Paul, when writing to the Philippians, gives us a glimpse into the intermediate state. He says that he has a desire to depart and to be with Christ" (Phil. i. 23); and again to the Corinthians, "While we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord;" and

"We are willing rather to be absent from the body, and present with the Lord." (2 Cor. v. 6. 8.) Immediately, therefore, after death, before the general judgment, and before we attain to the perfection of happiness and glory which we shall enjoy in heaven itself, we are blessed with a nearness to God, a consciousness of the presence of our dearest Lord and Saviour, in comparison with which our best communion on earth is but absence. "While we are at home in the body," says St. Paul, “we are absent from the Lord."

We may here mark the degrees, or steps as it were, of progress from the one state into the other. There is even on earth, even while we are in the body, a communion between the faithful soul and its loving Father and Saviour; and this communion, interrupted as it perpetually is with earthly cares and infirmities, has yet a joy of its own, far exceeding all the joy that the world can give. This approach to God, this earthly communion, is, however, but "absence" compared with that communion with our Lord which we shall enjoy during the rest of the soul in the interval between death and judgment; and this joy, again, will be increased tenfold when our souls, being reunited to our bodies, will again be restored to the full perfection of their nature, and will be received into those mansions of glory which our blessed Lord and Master is gone to prepare for us.

Our life in this world is a preparation for our life in heaven. Every privilege and every blessing which is given us in this life has a relation to that future life when alone they will be enjoyed perfectly.

Thus the rest from earthly care and sorrow and trouble, which we may obtain in this world by a proper discipline of our heart and affections, is but a preparation for the greater and more perfect rest which the soul will enjoy when separated from the body. The love which we bear towards our God and Saviour in this world, prepares the soul for that higher degree of love which it will enjoy when freed from all earthly infirmities; and this again will give place to a still stronger and purer love when, after the day of judgment, soul and body will be reunited, and will serve God in full perfection. The

spiritual communion, also, which we enjoy on earth is the same in nature, it does but differ in degree from that perfect communion which we shall enjoy in heaven. Has not St. Paul an eye to this "We when he progress says: all, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory?" (2 Cor. iii. 18.) What more animating and heart-stirring description can we give of the growth of the hidden life in each faithful soul?

In the history of the creation we learn that when God breathed into the nostrils of man the breath of life" man became a living soul" (Gen. ii. 7); and from St. John's Gospel we learn further, that in the Son of God is that life which is "the light of men." (John i. 4.)

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No doubt it is the quenching of this light, it is death as opposed to this life, that our blessed Lord refers to when He says, "He that liveth and believeth in me shall never die." (John ii. 26.) There is a bodily life, and there is a spiritual life, and the one is independent of the other. The bodily life ceases when the soul is separated from the body; and this is the death of this world. But the soul does not die this death. The soul may still enjoy the spiritual life, and of this life it is that our Saviour speaks when He says, "He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." (Ver. 25.) The soul of the true believer is not touched by the death of the body; it is rather set free to enjoy its own proper spiritual life. This life is received from Christ. It is begun on earth, it is continued after death, and it is perfected in heaven.

If we learn thus to trace the spiritual life from earth to heaven, we shall almost lose sight of the death which for a while separates us from those we love; we shall feel the full meaning of our Lord's words when He bade the mourners cease their cry, for "the maid is not dead, but sleepeth." (Matt. ix. 24.) The voice of Him who is Lord both of the dead and the living woke her, as it did Lazarus also, from this sleep; for the soul in its state of separation is conscious of the presence, and obedient to the command, of its Lord and Master.

Let us draw another practical conclusion from this

consideration of the spiritual life of the soul in its separate state. It is only the faithful servant of Christ that has the promise that "though he were dead, yet shall he live." If we desire to live with Christ hereafter we must live in Christ here. The life which proves victorious over death must be begun on earth.

We have seen that here, in this world, it is our privilege and our happiness to enjoy some degree of that rest which is the portion of the just in the intermediate state. We have seen that here, in this world, it is our privilege and our happiness to enjoy some degree of that communion with God which is the inheritance of the saints in glory; and now we see that the spiritual life which includes in itself this rest and this communion

must also begin on earth. God has done his part; He has given to us this life, when we are "buried with" Christ in the waters of Baptism, and rise again with Him to newness of life, as St. Paul teaches the Romans and the Colossians. And if God has graciously done his part it remains for us to do our part. And here, again, St. Paul is our teacher. "Reckon ye yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body." (Rom. vi. 11, 12.) This is the return which we are bound to make in acknowledgment of the "unspeakable gift" which we have received from God. "If ye be risen with Christ," says St. Paul, "seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." And then follows the precious promise, "When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory." (Col. iii. 1-4.) T. H.

FAITH THE ONLY TRUE SUPPORT IN AFFLICTION.

PSALM XXVII. 13.

"I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living."

WHERE flesh and sense would utterly fail, the principle of a living and trusting faith in the God of our salvation

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