world. They have fulfilled their task; ours tarrieth. Almost we are ready to say, Would it were over!-O fearful death! It has a lure which thrills in all my soul, and seems to draw me to itself; it fixes me by the fascination of its eye. Death is coming towards me. I must one day die, and "how I am straitened till it be accomplished!" Blessed and happy dead! great and mighty dead! In them the work of the new creation is well nigh accomplished. What feebly stirs in us, in them is well nigh full. They have passed within the veil, and there remaineth only one more change for them—a change full of a foreseen, foretasted bliss. How calm, how pure, how sainted, are they now! A few short years ago, and they were almost as weak and poor as we burdened with the dying body we now bear about; harassed by temptations, often overcome, weeping in bitterness of soul, struggling, with faithful though fearful hearts, towards that dark shadow from which they shrank as we shrink now.

And, lastly in very truth, it is life, rather than death, that we ought to fear. For life, and all that it contains, thought, and speech, and deed, and will, is a deeper and more awful mystery. In life is the warfare of good and ill; in life is the "hour and the power of darkness," the lures and the assaults of the wicked one. Here is no rest,

no shelter, no safety. What a charge, what a stewardship, is this little, fleeting, squandered life of man! In every hour of it we are changing for good or ill; ever growing better or worse, nearer or farther from God, nearer to heaven or to hell. Surely, life, with all its powers, capacities, probation, and responsibility, is a thing to tremble at. And yet we are in the midst of it; and the world is moving on around us, and we are caught and drawn along in its movements, and all our life is gathering itself up for one great cast; and few men know for what. Their life is lived for them. Powers from without shape their character and fix their doom, and they are dragged along in a bondage of custom, which their fearless trifling with life has made to be irresistible. And who shall not fear the changes and chances of this mortal life? Who, even the most resolved? Between this hour and the hour of death, who can foresee what may befall us? what unknown swervings, what stumblings, what falls? Who shall promise himself the gift of perseverance? Who can but fear his own heart's treachery? Who but tremble at the awful words uttered by the Church as often as she buries her dead out of her sight-words not less of warning than of prayer, words of depth unutterable: "O holy and most merciful Saviour, suffer us not at our last hour for any pains of death to fall from

Thee." Wherefore let us fear life, and we shall not be afraid to die. For in the new creation of God death walks harmless. Christ hath plucked out the sting; and "the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice's den." All is healed by Him who hath given His own flesh "for the life of the world." Therefore, when at last it comes nigh, we shall behold its darkness pierced every way by rays of a living light, and the gloom of its dread presence softened with the radiance of eternal peace. Even though our last passage be fearful to the flesh, though we be called to follow through the fire of a bodily anguish, still in the midst of all, and with we know not as yet what gracious visitations to allay our closing struggle,— even as they had of old, who bare witness from the torture and the flame, —we shall fall asleep. Let us therefore be much in thought with them that are at rest. They await our coming; for without us they shall "not be made perfect." Let us therefore remember, and love, and follow them ; that when our last change is over, we, with them, may "sleep in Jesus."

SERMON XXII.

THE COMMEMORATION OF THE FAITHFUL

DEPARTED.

1 COR. xv. 51.

"We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed."

Ir is plain from the writings of St. Paul, that even the apostles of our Lord did not know but that their Master's coming might be in their own lifetime. He had, for the secret ends of His divine wisdom, left the day of His return unknown, that they might never give over watching. With them the strange thing was, not that He should be so near at hand, but that He should tarry so long. But time ran on. Some were called away from

their earthly vigil: they began one by one to fall asleep they whose eyes were dim with : age, and the martyrs who were early bid to follow their Lord unseen and as the time still lingered, and the storm fell upon the Church, the visible fellowship of saints grew thin, and apostles, evangelists, bishops, and holy brethren, fell asleep one by one.

But the Church neither forgot them, nor deemed that they were severed from her fellowship. The communion of saints was a part of their baptismal faith; and though hid from her eyes, she knew they were nigh in spirit. And she fostered them in memory, and wrote their names in her book; and whensoever the saints, that were still left on earth to watch for the Lord, met together in the communion of the holy eucharist, she read aloud their names, as bidding them to their wonted place in her choir. She commemorated them with thanksgivings, and commended them to God's keeping as her precious treasures.

Now this was done, first of all, out of love to them and to their image. She fondly cherished every remembrance of their words and deeds, of their gentleness and purity: she rejoiced over them with a sorrowful gladness, as a mother musing over departed children: she could no longer behold them, and break bread with them; but she could prolong their presence by the vivid recollection of their beloved image, and by the consciousness of an united adoration: she knew that while she tarried praying without, they were but within the precinct of an inner court, nearer to the eternal throne.

And next, she commemorated them in faith, to keep up the conscious unity of the Church.

Y