the great gulf* that His steps were directed. That it was in joy and felicity that His spirit abode appears from the same 16th Psalm. My heart is glad, my glory i.e. my soul" rejoiceth "—so He sang. —so He sang. But observe the reason why :-" For Thou wilt not leave My soul in Hades." It was not because Hades was a delightsome place, but on the contrary-because of the sure hope of emerging from it.

There is therefore another side to the condition of spirit in which our Lord abode in the Invisible. It is that expressed by St. Peter when he says, "Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death.”+ Death -the state in which soul is separate from body—has its "pains," its restraints. The human soul in its creation was inspired into a body, and only in a body can live its perfect life. Without it it is homeless and naked‡: it is incapable of its full enjoyment and its consummate work. And accordingly we use to express the mind of Christ at this time the prayer of Jonah in the whale's belly, and the lament of David when driven by the rebellion of Absalom from the city of God and His temple, and the cry of the Psalmist de profundis.§ He felt the earth with her bars about Him: He was in the night, though in that night the Lord's song was with Him: His soul waited for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning.

And if He felt thus while in Hades, can we doubt that His people have like experience there? That the spirits of those who sleep in Him do abide in joy and felicity, But their joy, their felicity cannot be

we are sure.

*Luke xvi. 26.

+ Acts ii. 24.
§ Ps. cxxx.

2 Cor. v. 1-5.

greater than His were: and as in Him these emotions were consistent with the sense of restraint and the longing for resurrection, so must it be with them. Hades is indeed Paradise to them, a garden of sweet repose: it is more so than ever since He entered there, and Death's darkness has been made beautiful with Him. But they desire something better still, even to be clothed with their changed garments, to inhabit their house from heaven, and therein to work for God. And so from out of their hallowed rest we hear them with the ear of faith joining in the Church's "Come, Lord Jesu!" we know that in them as in the living there is

"One weary heart, one never-silent cry,—

'O Lord, how long' or ere the hour be nigh,

When Thou from heaven to earth again shalt come,

To take Thy Bride to her eternal home?"

III. Thirdly, the Services of this day teach us what was our Lord's occupation during the interval between His death and resurrection.

His occupation, we say; and herein speak of His spirit, not of His body. His body as yet belonged to the old creation, and kept on this Holy Saturday its Sabbath of rest. But His spirit had entered upon the life of the new creation, which knows no weariness and needs no repose. And, "put to death in flesh, but quickened in spirit," He went therein, says St. Peter in to-day's Epistle, and "preached unto the spirits in prison which sometime were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing." ."* He found in the invisible world to which His

spirit departed a company of spirits of those who once were alive in the days of Noah. They were disobedient to the word of that preacher of righteousness while the ark was being prepared, and so failed of salvation therein from the impending Deluge. But they repented (it would seem) of their sins ere yet the waters whelmed them, and so, though exposed to temporal judgment, escaped the being hurt of the second death. They remained in ward until the spirit of Jesus brightened their place of keeping, and then He preached to them the good tidings of God.

So far we have actual revelation to guide us. But devout imagining cannot be forbidden to take up the theme, and follow the footsteps of His spirit in the shadowy land. If to these He brought by personal communication such blessed news, can we think that He left others unvisited? Would He not gladden the hearts of the patriarchs and saints of old, of the prophets and kings who desired to see and hear the things of Him? We do not suppose, with many of old, that He took them with Him into heaven at His Ascension. But we do trust that He prepared them in heart and mind thither to ascend, and with Him continually to dwell, even as He enables us so to do; and by the same Holy Spirit. And whatever He manifested to them while with them, He gloriously confirmed by tearing Himself from Death's hitherto unconquerable grasp.

"When Thou hadst humbled Thyself to death,—

Jesu, Thou Life immortal,

With the glory of Thy Godhead

Thou didst shine into the obscure,

Thou didst preach unto the spirits in prison,

And smotest hell with deadly wound.

Thou didst spoil principalities and powers,

And show Thyself triumphant over them.

When Thou didst lead captivity captive,
The hosts of heaven saw Thee and adored.
O Christ our God, Giver of Life :

Glory be to Thee."

So we sing this morning. The coming Resurrection will cast its brightness before, and awake even now the strain of praise. But the general character of to-day's Services is one of saddened stillness. The altar remains undecked: no lights are kindled, and no incense burnt. The Sacrifice has been offered, but the Victim lies dead; and we rejoice not yet. But to-morrowvery early in the morning, as it begins to dawn to the first day of the week" -we mourners shall come, not to the tomb of a dead, but to the house of a risen Christ, and shall say one to another, "The Lord is risen indeed. Hallelujah." Then shall we rejoice in a Sacrifice accepted, a Saviour triumphant, and ourselves made partakers in His victory.

EASTER DAY.

"The Lord is risen indeed."

MOST of us have known what it is to stand by the grave of a dead hope, and to feel that all joy in life is buried there for ever. Who could have felt this more keenly than the disciples and the faithful women, as they looked upon the place where Jesus lay? They had hoped that this was he who should have redeemed Israel; but now all had seemed to end in failure. It was but the old story: the lover of men martyred by those he came to bless; the earnest heart grappling with our sorrows and perplexities, and breaking in the task. There was nothing to be done but to pay the last honours to his ashes, and then to return to their homes with another hero to worship, another teacher to learn from, keeping his memory sacred and tender, and walking as best they might in the steps of his example.

So would it have been if Christ had not risen from that grave of His; and so much and no more will men have of Him now. To believe in His Resurrection is to acknowledge a miracle; and Science, intruding where it should not, is daily finding miracles more and more incredible. The leaders of modern thought will admit our Christ into their Pantheon of sages and philanthropists. They will mourn with us over His rejection and martyrdom. But there they stop. We say "The Lord is risen indeed;" but they respond with no Hallelujah. The fact finds no