THE CHRISTIAN'S FINAL TRIUMPH.

BY GEORGE W. BETHUNE, D.D., BROOKLYN.

O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.—1 COR. xv.

55-57.

I. THE CHALLENGE.

1. Where is the sting of death? Alas! and is it nothing to die? Is it nothing to leave this fair earth, our pleasant homes, our loving friends, and become as dust beneath the sod, and under the gloomy cypresses? Is it nothing to have the sad certainty before us at all times, in the midst of our best successes, that the hour is coming when the cold, ignominious grave shall hide us from them all? That our plans of ambition, gain, knowledge, service to those who are dear, zeal for our country and for the welfare of mankind, must be broken off, and the brain which projected, the hand which wrought, the heart which beat strong, must become still as the clod, and the luxury of worms? Is it nothing that the first tottering step of the child, the spring of youth, the firm tread of adult vigor, and the halt of the old man leaning on his staff, are to the same vile end? Is it nothing that the blood shall be chilled at its fountain, the clammy sweat-drops start out on the forehead, the breath come slowly and in agony, and the life, clinging desperately, be torn away and cast forth by fierce convulsion? Has death no sting when we hold the beloved, who made life precious and the world beautiful, by so frail a tenure? Has it no sting for the yearning bosom from which the little one has been taken, never again to nestle sweetly there? Has it no sting in that life-long pang a widowed spirit bears ?'' Has it no sting when just, the friend of the

we follow the good man, the generous, the sorrowful and the poor, the champion of the weak, to his last resting-place? No sting in death! Is there one among us such a miracle of uninterrupted happiness, so insensible to others' grief, as not to have felt its keen and lingering sharpness?

2. Where is the victory of the grave? Where is it not? The kings of the earth lie in "the desolate places they built for them

selves." Riches can purchase no allies skilful to avert the blow. Obscurity affords us no refuge. The slave falls by the side of the master, and the beggar is slain by the wayside. What conqueror is so mighty, when all conquerors fight in its battles and then bow themselves in death with their victims? The track of its march is cumbered with the wreck of fairest symmetry and beauty and vigor. The generations of past ages are all crumbled into dust; all the living are following in one vast funeral; all posterity shall follow us. Were all the cries of those who have perished, and the shrieks of the bereaved over their dead crowded into one, the shriek would shake the earth to its centre. Where is the victory of the grave? The silence of the dead, the anguish of the surviving, the mortality of all that shall be born of mortals, confess it to be universal.

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Yet were there nothing but this, the calamity would be light. A few tears, a sharp pang, and all would be over. sleep, and dream not. But there is more than this. there to be graves upon this decorated earth, which God looked down upon and pronounced good? My fellow-children of the dust, God is angry with us. God has armed death and sent him forth, the executioner of a divine sentence, the avenger of a broken law. The victory of the grave is the victory of justice over rebellion. Here is the sharpness of death's sting. It is the evidence and punishment of sin. It is the lowering darkness of the storm of wrath which is eternal. The bitterness of death is that, pleasant as sins may be now, death will soon and surely come, and after death the judgment, when every sin shall find us out, and the sinner shall stand with no excuse, or plea, or refuge; and after the judgment, eternal woe for all the condemned. Here we see the Apostle's boldness, the valor of Christian faith. For knowing he must surely die and the grave cover him, he stands up bravely and flings defiance in its face.

II. THE THANKSGIVING.

1. Whence is our victory ? God gives death its sting, the grave its victory. So long as He arms and strengthens them, it is impossible to resist them. He alone can give us the victory by becoming our friend. Then His ministers, which were our enemies, must be our friends.

2. How is the victory given? Will the sting still remain with

death, or strength with the grave? Will God still arm the be liever's enemies and yet fight for him? Will mercy deliver the sinner whom justice holds bound? Does sin cease to be guilty or law to lose its force? Hear the Apostle: "Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." For this the Son of God became incarnate, that, as man, in the place of man the sinner, He might be capable of suffering the penalty of the law, which is death, He became man that He might suffer; He died that man might live. He stood forth in our stead to answer all the demands of the law; and the sovereign Lawgiver accepted the Substitute, and laid upon Him the iniquity of us all. More than this, He demonstrated His victory over the grave. For though He was buried, and the grave and the powers of darkness struggled mightily to hold Him fast, He dragged them forth, captivity captive, openly triumphing. But the full manifestation of His triumph and ours is kept for that day when the voice of the archangel and the trump of God shall proclaim His final coming to judgment, and all the dead, the countless dead, shall start to life. Thus will God vindicate His conquest over death and the grave, by compelling them to give liberty to the bodies of the redeemed.

3. Wherein does our victory consist? The believer triumphs in Christ's perfect atonement. By faith he obeys in Christ, walks with Christ in His holy life, and through Christ honors the divine law which before he had broken. By faith he is crucified with Christ (Gal. 11. 20). Death with its precursors, pain and infirmity, remains; but their mastery over him exists no longer. Pain and sickness are now God's faithful chastenings, and death is no more death, but life eternal.

The believer triumphs in Christ's resurrection. "I am crucified in Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." For this is the office and power of Christ to give eternal life to as many as receive Him; and this is the privilege of the Christian even while on earth, to have his conversation in heaven. Death has lost its power to divide him from God. He soars upon the wings of faith far above the gloomy barrier, enters the company of the Church of the first-born, and listens to the harpings of innumerable angels. Is not this a victory over death and the grave?

The believer triumphs in the final resurrection. Christ not only arose, but ascended on high. There the body which was here bent by sorrow has been made glorious in divine beauty; and the countenance here channeled by tears, buffeted and spit upon, is altogether lovely, its smile the fairest light of heaven; and heaven rolls up its waves of hallelujahs at His feet, in which the print of the nails perpetuate the memory of the cross. As the Redeemer is glorified in His flesh, so shall the believer be raised up to glory. What then to him whose faith can grasp things unseen, are all the passing ignominies, and pangs, and insults, which now afflict him? Every revolution of the earth rolls on to that fulness of adoption “when this mortal shall put on immortality."

"Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory!" And who are included in that? "Not to me only," says the Apostle, "but unto all them also who love His appearing" (2 Tim. iv. 8). Ye shall share it, ancient believers, who from Adam to Christ worshipped by figure and under the shadow. Ye shall share it, ye prophets, who wondered at the mysterious promises of glory following suffering. Ye shall share it, ye mighty apostles, though ye doubted when ye heard of the broken tomb. Ye martyrs, whose howling enemies execrated you, as they slew you by sword and cross, and famine and rack, and wild beast and flame. And ye, God's humble poor, whom men despised, but of whom the world was not worthy. God's angels are watching, as they watched the sepulchre in the garden, over your obscure graves, keeping your sacred dust till the morning break, when it shall be crowned with princely splendor. Yes, thou weak one, who yet hast strength to embrace thy Master's cross; thou sorrowing one, whose tears fall like rain over the grave of thy beloved; thou tempted one, who, through much tribulation, art struggling on to the Kingdom of God-ye all shall be there, and ten thousand times ten thousand more. Hark! the trumpet! The earth groans and rocks herself as if in travail ! They rise, the sheeted dead, but how lustrously white are their garments! How dazzling their beautiful holiness! What a mighty host! They fill the air; they acclaim hallelujahs; the heavens bend with shouts of harmony; the Lord comes down, and His angels are about Him. He owns His chosen, and they rise to meet Him, and they mingle with cherubim and seraphim, and the shoutings are like thun

ders from the throne of God-thunderings of joy: "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!'' Christians, death is before us. The graves are thick around us. I do not say, suffer not: Jesus suffered. But suffer like men valiant in battle, whose wounds are incentives to new valor, earnests of future honor.

I do not say, weep not: Jesus wept. Christian dead. They are safe and blest. unfit you to follow them.

But sorrow not for the

Weep for the sins that

I do not say, shudder not: Jesus trembled when He took the cup into his hand, dropping with bloody sweat. But I do say, fear not. Now it is your duty to live. When death comes, you shall have grace to die. But oh! be sure you are in Christ; that you are covered by His atonement. Then may you be sure of the victory.

But Oh my God, what shall I say to those who have no faith in thee, no repentance, no consideration? They are going down to death and the grave, yet they live and laugh on as though they were to live here forever. How shall I tell them of the sting of death of eternal death? Of the victory of the grave-the grave of everlasting fire? Speak thou to them, O Holy Spirit! Turn them, draw them, compel them to come under the wings of thy pardoning love.

THE CHARACTER AND DEATH OF WASHINGTON IRVING.

BY JOHN A. TODD, D. D., TARRYTOWN, N. Y.

For behold the Lord, the Lord of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water, the mighty man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the prudent and the ancient, the captain of fifty, and the honorable man, and the counsellor, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator.-ISAIAH iii. 1-3.

THE prophet does not allow the thoughts of those he is addressing to rest upon the Chaldeans as the primary cause of the events he predicts; but he leads their contemplations upward and