228 FINAL REUNION OF THE SOUL AND BODY. Then shalt thou glorious rise, and fair, The bursting of thy bonds shall wait, FINAL REUNION OF THE SOUL AND BODY. FLAVEL. CHRIST'S body was raised from the dead to be glorified and crowned with honor. O, it was a joyful day to him; and so will the resurrection of the saints be to them the day of the gladness of their hearts. It will be said to them in that morning, "Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust." (Is. xxvi. 19.) O, how comfortable will be the meeting between the glorified soul and its new-raised body!. For even glorified souls in heaven have such a desire of reunion. We are all sensible of the soul's affection to the body now, its sympathy with it, and unwillingness to be separated from it. It is said to be "at home in the body." (2 Cor. v. 6.) This inclination remains in heaven; it reckons not itself completely happy till its older, dear companion and partner be with it. Now, when this inclination to its own body, its longings after it, are gratified with the sight and enjoyment of it again, what a joyful meeting will this be! As the body shall be raised with all the improvements and endowments imaginable which may render it every way desirable, so the soul comes down immediately from God out of heaven, shining in its holiness and glory. And thus it reënters its body, and animates it again. The chief joy of this meeting consists in the end for which the glorified soul comes down to quicken and repossess it, namely, to meet the Lord, and ever to be with the Lord; to receive a full reward for all the labors and services it performed for God in this world. This must make that day a day of triumph and exaltation. It comes out of the grave, as Joseph out of prison, to be advanced to the highest honor. O, do but imagine with what an ecstasy of joy the soul will thus resume its own body, and say, as it were, unto it, Come away, my dear, my ancient friend, who servedst and sufferedst with me in the world; come along with me to meet the Lord, in whose presence I have been ever since I parted with thee. Now, thy bountiful Lord hath remembered thee also, and the day of thy glorification is come. Surely it will be a joyful meeting. What a joy is it for dear friends to meet after a long separation! How they usually give demonstrations of their love and delight in each other by embraces, kisses, and tears! And frame to yourselves the idea of perfect health, when a sprightly vivacity runs through every part, and the spirits, as it were, overflow as we go about any business, especially such as the business of that day will be-to receive a crown and a 230 HOPE FOR THE MOURNER. kingdom. Do but imagine what a bright morning this will be, and how the pains and agonies, cold sweats and bitter groans, at parting will be recompensed by the joy of such a meeting! HOPE FOR THE MOURNER. BERNARD BARTON. "But it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light.” WE journey through a vale of tears, And worldly cares and worldly fears Not to the last! THY WORD hath said, ZECH. XIV. 7. Though earth-born shadows now may shroud Thy thorny path a while, And bid the sunshine smile. Only BELIEVE, in living faith, His love and power divine, And ere thy sun shall set in death, His light shall round thee shine. When tempest clouds are dark on high, His bow of love and peace Shines sweetly in the vaulted sky, Betokening storms shall cease. And thou shalt own His word fulfilled - IMMORTALITY. G. MOORE. MORALITY and religion are based upon immortality; and not only so, but the emotions proper to moral and religious conduct necessarily indicate deathlessness. In short, we cannot entertain a notion of right and wrong without believing in a future state, or a life in which good or evil dispositions find their results. We are bound to right conduct, because the laws of Heaven are the laws of eternity, and we cannot escape the judgment already against us if we neglect our salvation. If nominal death, the death of the body, were the end of man's being, he might dismiss the claims of conscience from his soul; he would then have nothing to mind, nothing to concern himself about, but to take his ease as long as it lasted, and to seize upon the accommodations of this world of promise and provision to the best of his ability. Those who do not look forward to a life beyond the grave really act on this unaccountable principle-"Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." And they would be quite justified in so doing if something did not say within them, You cannot die—your God has to do with you forever. The immortality of the soul was implied in all the commandments of God under the Mosaic economy, and in the history of the patriarchs, and in all the trials of men's spirits from the beginning, because there was no sufficient end to be answered by the divine permission and providence as regarded man, unless in sustaining him in the hope of a future and enlarged existence. Hence the great cloud of witnesses adduced by Paul (Heb. xi.) as having acted under the power of faith with respect to the better resurrection, believing as they did in God as the Rewarder of his worshippers. And the translation of Enoch and of Elijah was the visible regeneration of the body itself under the act of the Almighty's will, by which man was fitted in a moment to exchange earth for heaven, as a spiritual being accommodated to a physical universe by a mediate body, capable of change according to the demands of the inhabiting spirit and the place in which it was required to dwell. There was always sufficient evidence on earth to induce the hope of another life, and plain facts asserted, to all who could credit honest testimony, the reasonableness of looking beyond this world for the fruition of a soul set on finding its Maker. The reasonableness of such a belief may be shown not only by reference to the |