should never die, but should survive to be changed and translated at the coming of the Lord.

Where the "great congregation" of the disciples was convened is unknown. It is almost certain that at this meeting the five hundred brethren mentioned by Paul, were assembled with the eleven apostles, who alone are mentioned by Matthew. The circumstances of this appearing are not related; but it seems to have been in peculiar majesty. When the disciples saw Him, they prostrated themselves in adoration, though some-none of the apostles, surely-" doubted," not His resurrection, but the lawfulness of such adoration. He, however, accepted their worship, and "spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen."

CHAPTER III.

THE ASCENSION.

DURING the forty days subsequent to His resurrection, our Lord had no fixed abode on earth. He did not, as some have imagined, dwell in seclusion with His blessed mother; much less in some solitary place whence He went forth, at intervals, to show Himself to His disciples. Though His material body, far from being annihilated or given over to corruption, came forth from the tomb the same body, it was mysteriously changed and glorified. Matter, in His risen humanity, was transmuted into something rich and rare: I had almost said that it passed, by a wondrous transubstantiation, into spirit. It became a "spiritual body." Instinct with immortal life and energy, it was no longer bound by the laws of natural corporeity. Jesus no longer belonged to the natural world, though the natural world still belonged to Him, and was more than ever subject to His royal will.

The theory has been broached, and has found some distinguished advocates, that the body of the Lord was gradually glorified during the great forty days. It is a theory beset with fatal difficulties; and it derives no support from the Scriptures. While it seems to account for the delay of the ascension, it attaches to that event an importance, as compared with the resurrection, which the evangelists do not ascribe to it. Indeed, Matthew and John do not even mention the ascension, evidently because they regard it as implied in His resurrection ;

while Mark and Luke make it quite subordinate. The significance of the ascension depends entirely on our Lord's mode of existence after He rose from the dead. If He was glorified in His resurrection, then the ascension becomes the last of His appearances to His disciples, and as such, memorable and glorious, but not a proof of any change in His humanity, or in His relations to the natural world on the one hand or to the spiritual on the other. If it be now asked, where did our Lord dwell during the great forty days, we ask in reply, where but in heaven itself-in the Father's house-the true home of His glorified humanity? From the morning of His resurrection, He was an inhabitant of the heavenly world. Except when He was with His disciples-nay, even then, -He was surrounded with celestial hosts who adored and served Him as their King and Lord. He vanished from the eyes of men into a world of ineffable light and beauty and blessedness. He was already crowned; He was already, as He told the disciples on the Galilean mountain, invested with all power in heaven and in earth; He was already sitting on the right hand of God.

,:

The inspired history records eleven distinct appearances of the Lord during the forty days; but we infer from the words of Luke* that these were by no means all. It is probable that to one or more of the disciples He showed Himself almost daily. For these frequent manifestations there was urgent need. The disciples were as yet too infirm and timid to go alone. They could not even stand without His personal presence; for, though Jesus was glorified, the Holy Ghost was not yet given. They were not prepared for the Spirit-baptism; they must be taught to seek for it in earnest prayer; their hearts must be uplifted to receive it. Thus the state of the disciples

*Acts i. 3.

serves to explain not only our Lord's frequent manifestations to them after His resurrection, but also the delay of the promised effusion of the Holy Ghost.

The period of delay, however, was now drawing to a close. The disciples were again assembled at Jerusalem, not now dispirited and perplexed, but full of hope and joy. They probably expected that Christ's visible reign would commence about the time of the descent of the Holy Spirit. When, therefore, they came together, perhaps in their usual chamber in the city, and Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them, "they asked of Him, saying, Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?" He answered: "It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father hath put in His own power. But ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you; and ye shall be witnesses unto Me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth."

Having thus again repeated the substance of the great commission, He led forth the disciples up the familiar road to the summit of Mount Olivet. Having passed the crest of the mountain to the eastern slope, over against Bethany, He lifted up His hands to bless them, and in the act He ascended through the air till a cloud-probably the light-cloud of the transfiguration-received Him out of their sight. While they were gazing upward, two angels in human form, clad in white robes, stood by them, and said to them, and through them to us, "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up in heaven? This same Jesus, who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come, in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven."

In these last days, the voice of the ascended Lord is sounding full and clear in the ears of all who wake and watch: "Surely, I come quickly. Amen."

EVEN SO, COME LORD JESUS! AMEN.

Index.

ABRAHAM, page 53, 60, 82, 119, 196, 203, | Capernaum, description of, 166, 167;