dear friends and relations of our own; those who but yesterday were eating and drinking with us, partaking of all our hopes and cares and affections, and expecting to continue here as long as ourselves; there too may we humbly hope to be ere long gathered together with them; and indeed we know not how soon. It may be before another year has past, or another month, or another week, or it may be in the course of another day. So deeply does it concern us to know and reflect of that place into which Christ has now entered to prepare a place for us,—that abode of many mansions which He has gone to sanctify for us among the dead, where our souls may be received until the morning of the great manifestation.

The night follows upon the day and seems about to cover us with gloom and darkness ; but instead of impalpable darkness we find, beyond all that thought of man could otherwise have conceived, that it is to open to us the beautiful starry heavens unseen in the glare of day; those marvellous ethereal worlds, so vast and so bright, and so numerous, that our hearts at the sight of them are overwhelmed in adoration and wonder. For night is given to us to be the image of that intermediate state which follows on

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our departure from the body before the great morning. And night is also the season for quiet rest and sleep, so refreshing to the weary, so welcome to the heavy-laden; setting forth that sleep in Christ in which there is restoration and refreshment. Night is also the season for contemplation so much so that in the Greek language one of the words for night signifies that which is good for the mind, that period of repose so suitable for reflection; the time of sweet meditation. And such is the intermediate state. For what season can there be for the thoughts of wisdom and sober rumination like that which intervenes between this life and the day of Judgment?

And what shall we say too of dreams which occur in sleep? how unaccountable and mysterious are they! And for what purpose are they designed, those, if we may so call them, ethereal visitants? Scenes gone by and which appear to be forgotten; things done or suffered, friends from the furthest distance of time and place are with us; the past lives again; we feel, we understand, we have joys and sorrows, affections and aversions. How does all this serve to represent as it were in a faint glimpse, and by a figure, that in that sleep of death the soul is

awake; can think, and be sensible of gladness and grief; can be cheered or oppressed!

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And now let us consider what reasons there are for connecting this subject so intimately with this day, this holy Sabbath when our Lord rested in the grave. We are speaking not of our Lord's Body only, which was laid in the grave, but of that which is spoken of in that creed, "He descended into hell." Now the fact of its being thus introduced in the creed, is of itself an indication that it contains a matter of doctrine of great importance to us. "He descended into hell," i. e. He went down into the place of the dead, that unseen world where the departed are. But how did He there descend? It was not in His body, such as the disciples had seen and known, for that was in the grave; nor was it His Godhead only, for as God He filled all things, but it was His soul, the soul which He had taken as man. The words of the creed set before us the reality of the death of Christ; and by so doing are calculated to keep up in our minds a lively sense of it; and of the fulfilment of that curse pronounced on Adam. That His death was indeed that of man, the departure of the soul from the body. That as on earth He suffered as a sinner who had done no

sin; and felt all the infirmities and sorrows, and died the death of sinful man; so also did He depart as a sinner, or as one bearing sin for us into that other state which is beyond the grave, and descended into the lower parts of the earth; but God raised Him up, having loosed the pains of death, inasmuch as death could not have dominion over Him, nor retain power over His pure and spotless Soul. As He had said by the prophet David, "Thou wilt not leave My soul in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer Thine holy One to see corruption." And this circumstance was typified and prefigured of old, like all others respecting our Lord; it was very strongly set forth in the law, in the oblation of the two goats on the solemn day of the atonement; when one goat was slain in sacrifice as a sin-offering, and its blood sprinkled on the mercy-seat, and the other was sent away alive, to escape into the wilderness, "bearing upon him all the iniquities of the people unto a land not inhabited." Which appears to signify that while our Lord's body which had bled on the cross, like the animal that was slain, was laid in the grave, bearing our sins; His soul, which suffered likewise as an expiation for our sins, was to depart hence like the other animal, which was let go into the wilderness.

It seems to be of both these combined, in the circumstances of natural death, that the Psalmist speaks in the person of Christ, "I am counted as one of them that go down into the pit, and I have been even as a man that hath no strength. Free among the dead, like unto them that are wounded, and lie in the grave, who are out of remembrance."

But further, let us consider in what way this so deeply affects ourselves on our departure from the body. And here it may be asked, do we know of other human souls being together with our Lord in that state on the other side of the grave ? It is indeed supposed that of this St. Peter speaks, when he says, "Being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit, by which also He went and preached unto the spirits in prison." And again, that of this the prophet Zechariah says in the lesson for to-day, "I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water. Turn you to the stronghold, ye prisoners of hope." Yet still it might be said of these passages that they are of themselves shadowy as the grave, and not sufficient for the soul to rest on. We have an anchor entering within the veil, most sure and stedfast, in the memorable words spoken to the penitent