temple. It must fall in pieces, and fire will waste it, and desolating winds scatter its dust.

In the light of the truths we have considered, we see whence come the wide-spread and desolating evils under which the na tions, and our own with others, is called to mourn, and where is to be applied the heaven-appointed remedy. The godly citizen must come from the godly household; and as well might we hope to build a goodly vessel from the rough unhewn timber of the forest, as an orderly, righteous nation from the families in which disorder reigns, that fear not God, and disregard His commandments. Vain are all civil laws-vain as for the farmer to sow his seed after the seed-time has gone by-vain all civil penalties -vain as the pruning axe to change the nature of the tree. For God's institutions there can be no substitute; for the disre gard of them no remedy. For six thousands years the world has striven to prosper without them; but there has been no peacethere shall be none to the wicked. Kingdom after kingdom has striven to allay human disorders, and then gone down into darkness; codes of laws, in every line of which justice appeared, have appealed to the moral sense; but still the man-slayer in all lands has shed the blood of his victim; and the thief has stealth. ily crept through the darkness, and the prisons have been crowded with the shameless and the hardened. There can be no peace until God becomes the household Deity, and His name and truth enter into the earliest associations of the soul. Thank God, my hearer, if you awoke into life in such a home, where, from lips now perhaps silent in death, you heard, even as the light of life was dawning around you, messages from your infinite Father -a home in which the word of God was the central light and glory, where the morning and evening prayer was uttered; and voices sang the praises to be perfected in heaven. Happy the man who, from the vexations, turmoils and disappointments of this life, can look back upon such a home, and especially to that which such a home foreshadows. The great Napoleon, upon his desolate isle, stood firm as the rock under his feet against the storms that beat upon him, until he spake of his early home and thoughts of his mother came; then the wondrous movements of his history, and the magnificent empire he had gained and lost, and great thoughts that had borne him up, passed away from his memory. The voice that had commanded kings and armies was broken, as with head bowed down he cried, "Oh! for my home, my mother!" Ah! had he not learned that earthly and filial love pointed to a higher and that earthly home, forever vanished, was designed by God to be a shadow of a heavenly? Is it necessary, my hearers, to add another word to impress upon all present their responsibilities? It is natural to desire power, and God has set you over a kingdom whose interests far outweigh those of any mere external empire on the face of the earth. For the misrule

of kings and the social disorders they have occasioned, He will hold them responsible. For the disorders and godlessness, the lax morality and failure of instruction and false instructions of the family, if such prevail, and the transmission of these to other generations, the King of kings will also summon you to a solemn reckoning. Look upon the household over which he has set you! Are you ready to answer to your Judge, to Him who hath said, "He that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much." And has your household no claims upon you? You have brought to it a heritage of sin and sorrow. Oh! ere you lie down in the dust, gather a treasure of many prayers and kind instructions, pious examples and hallowed memories, that you may leave to them a heritage when you go "the way you shall never return." May God bless His truth to your souls. Amen.

HYMN.

Come at the morning hour,
Come, let us kneel and pray;
Prayer is the Christian pilgrim's staff
To walk with God all day.

At noon, beneath the Rock

Of Ages, rest and pray;

Sweet is that shelter from the sun

In the weary heat of day.

At evening, in thy home,
Around its altar, pray;

And finding there the house of God,
With heaven then close the day.

When midnight vails our eyes,

O, it is sweet to say,

I sleep, but my heart waketh, Lord!
With Thee to watch and pray.

-BRIGGS' COLL.

SERMON DCXCII.

BY REV. E. F. ROCKWELL.

PROF. OF LATIN IN DAVIDSON COLLEGE, N. C.

THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST.

"And if Christ be not raised your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.”—1 Cor·

xv. 17.

THE death of Christ is the great central fact in the history of the world. To this the saints of old, for the space of four thou sand years, looked forward, through the dim shadows of rites and offerings. For this Lamb slain in the purpose of God, Prophets, priests and kings waited long, and died without the sight. To him hanging on the cross as a sacrifice for sin, have all believers since that day looked back for comfort and peace. As the Sun is the centre of the universe, so the Cross of Christ is the centre to which the hearts of all men that would attain blessedness must be directed. All the ends of the earth, and all ages of times, must look unto him for salvation. No historical fact since the world began can have the importance of this; or needs more certain proof than this, whether Christ not only died, but rose again. No question can be raised that involves the interests of a greater number of persons, or for a longer time: for, as he is the only Saviour, if he be not raised, our faith in him is ineffectual and we are still in our sins.

I. Christ undoubtedly died on the cross. Matthew simply says, "He yielded up the Ghost." Mark informs us that when Joseph of Arimathea begged the body for interment, Pilate first received information from the centurian on the point before he granted the request. And John testifies that when the soldiers, to hasten the death of the criminals, brake their legs, finding Christ already dead, refrained from that, but one of them thrust his spear into his side, and blood and water flowed out. And after this Joseph preferred his request for the body. There could be no room for collusion or deception ;-Pilate, and the centurian, and the Roman soldier, whose trade was blood, and who took so much pains to be assured of the fact, could not be mistaken. Divine Providence secured the proof of this against all cavil, and at the same time fulfilled the prophecy, that "a bone of him should not be broken."-" And he that saw it bare record; and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true." The witness John knew the importance of this fact.

II. The dead body was laid in the tomb of Joseph, "a rich man," "a good man and just," "an honorable counsellor," by himself and Nicodemus, another rich man and counsellor, not open friends of the Saviour. His own disciples had no hand in his pious act of rendering the last honors to the body of the Redeemer. But though he died with the wicked, with the rich was his burial.

III. This was a new tomb, hewn out of solid rock, and in which no other body had been deposited.

This is a matter that requires more prominence than is commonly given to it. There could be no collusion-no substitution of any other body.

John employs two negatives in speaking on this point; literally, "in which no man had never been laid." But Luke asserts still stronger by three; one of which denies of the fact, another of the time, and the third of the person-" where had not been laid, at no time, no person "—all of which in Greek strengthen the negatives.

The latter witness seems to have known and felt that much depended on this.

Tombs of this kind remain at this day about Jerusalem cut out of the solid rock.

IV. This tomb was closed up by a door of solid rock, sealed up by authority, and a guard of Roman soldiers detailed to watch it.

These precautions were taken at the instance of the Chief Priests and Pharisees, to prevent any pretence of a Resurrection: "they made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone and setting a watch." And of course they knew that the body, about which they had so much concern, was in the tomb. And their words and actions prove that they knew that the whole matter at issue between him and them was now to be decided.

But as Providence directed, these precautions authenticated and established the Resurrection: for on the third day, according to the time before appointed, the body was missing. There was no access to it any other way than by the door, which was closed by a rock, sealed by the governor, and watched by some say sixty soldiers.

"But, to the confusion of those who had compassed his death, the body was gone Sabbath morning. All parties testify to this fact. The women who hastened to the tomb very early in the morning. The disciples who also went. The soldiers on guard reported the body missing, and how can its absence be accounted for? There are only four suppositions possible.

1. That the soldiers of the guard removed it. not charged with this gross disregard of duty.

1

But they are
They had no

motive for it. They were Romans-placed there by the highest authority in the Province. They saw the seal, and if they broke it they must suffer death; military discipline was very severe. They had nothing to gain, and everything to lose, and they could not be guilty of such an act. They would incur the enmity of the great body of the Jews and of the Roman government.

2. That the Chief Priests and Pharisees caused its withdrawal. But they had caused his death, and in case of any pretence of a Resurrection it was their interest to show the dead body where it was laid. They would not and could not do the very thing that they took so much pains to prevent; and there was no place so safe to keep it as this tomb.

3. That the disciples removed it. But first, they had not courage to encounter a whole company of soldiers. When he was arrested, "they all forsook him and fled."

Secondly. They did not expect his Resurrection, and had no motive to remove the body. When Christ predicted his own death and Resurrection, "they understood not that saying," being still blinded by their views of a temporal kingdom, which continued till the day of his ascension. And on another occasion, when he had spoken of rising from the dead, "they questioned one with another what that could mean."

Thirdly. When the two Marys had been to the tomb, and had seen the angel who told them of the Resurrection, the Apostles did not believe their report. "Their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not." And Thomas, who was not present at first, was so incredulous that it required the strongest kind of proof to convince him.

Fourthly. The state in which the grave clothes were found shows that the body was not stolen. They were wrapped up in order, as by one perfectly quiet and without indecent haste.

Fifthly. The body was honorably buried by a friend, in a new tomb, and abundant preparations made a hundred pounds of myrrh and spices for embalming it-and there was no conceivable motive to remove it except to fulfill prophecy; and "as yet they knew not the Scripture that he must rise again from the dead."

4. No other supposition remains but that the body was removed without hands. He, by his own power, burst the gates of the grave, and took up that life that he had laid down. This would be the necessary consequence had no one seen him afterwards-had he immediately, on that Sabbath morning, ascended to Heaven without manifesting himself to men. But the angels that appeared to the women declared that he "was risen." Mary Magdalen first saw him. Two other disciples, as they walked and went into the country, saw him next, "in another form," with a different dress or a changed countenance. Afterward he appeared to the eleven as they sat at meat, and "did eat before them."