Is not that, I say, an echo of that wonderful teaching of Christ, that death is sleep? What can have brought such change in the world? Whence did it come? Philosophical opinion produced nothing but epicurean carelessness and stoical contempt for death, or here and there a little jet of grander faith. But here a poor mother lays down her daughter, slain it may be, by the arrow of persecution, but she says— "She sleeps in Jesus." It is a sleep that knows an awaking—a short life that breaks into a glorious morning. I say that is a characteristic of every Christian. Immortality is not a mere opinion, it is a conviction, and the Christian realizes it now. Now, my friends, I urge upon you the power and significance there is in Christ's resurrection. I entreat you to rise with him -rise in his spirit; not only believe that there is another world for you when you have passed through the gateway of the grave, but be in the spiritual state now, and rise with Christ. How? By coming into communion with him.

Wherever you act and live in the spirit of Jesus, with tenderness, with love, with submission to the Divine will, and with self-sacrifice, there you rise in him. There stand the symbols of Jesus Christ; when you receive the significance of these symbols, they speak to you of all that tenderness, qbedience, devotion, and self-sacrifice. Do you need this in your lives? Are you strong with Christ's strength in the temptation of the world? Are you able to go on

without Christ's influence amid the conflicts of life? Are you too good to come to the communion table, or are you too bad? You can not be too bad, as I have repeatedly said. Let any one who is conscious of weakness, darkness, doubt, and fear, come and rise with the spirit of Jesus; rise in his strength, and then you will get the real significance of Christ; you will get power over death, and sin which is the sting of death. Oh, come into communion with him amid the pealing bells and the anthems of this Easter Sunday; rise, rise evermore, and share his joy and his victory!

WAYSIDE OPPORTUNITIES.

Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.-John iv, 10.

N the road from Jerusalem to Galilee there runs a

ON
Onarrow valley, which is the most beautiful and

one of the most memorable places in that most memorable of all lands. Taking these two elements of interest, the natural and the historical together, we may call it perhaps the most remarkable spot upon the face of the earth. As it bursts upon the vision of the traveler in sudden loveliness, "green with grass, gray with olives," with its orchards and gardens and rushing springs, the pleased surprise with which he surveys its luxuriance is soon superseded by the recollections which crowd into his mind. He remembers that from time immemorial it has been a sacred spot, a place of worship, and of national consecration. There Abraham halted under the terebinths of Moreh; there Jacob bought a field and found a home; and there in the beauty and fertility of the land were typified the blessings which the patriarch pronounced upon the son to whom he bequeathed it. There tradition tells us is

the tomb of Joseph, and there those brethren are buried who near this place sold him into bondage. There from Mount Ebal on the north and Gerizim on the south, the tribes of Israel poured forth blessings and curses; there in this inclosure of great events and sacred memories still lingers "the oldest and smallest sect in the world." The Samaritans still worship there. The slope of Mount Gerizim is worn with their foot-prints, where, four times a year, they ascended for their solemn service; and at its foot stands their synagogue.

But one incident has made that valley more memorable than all things else, and has combined in suggestive unity its utmost significance of nature and of history-for Jacob's well was and still is there; and there Jesus on his way to Galilee sat weary at noon-tide, and talked with the woman of Samaria, unfolding for her, for all ages, for all people, for us to-day, the grandest truths of God and of the human soul.

There is much more in this remarkable passage than I shall attempt even to glance at upon the present occasion. I may hereafter from time to time refer to different points in the conversation; but I call your attention this morning to a few thoughts growing out of the particular verse which I have selected for the text.

The general lesson which in the first place I draw from this verse, is the significance and importance of wayside opportunities. Speaking after the ordinary

manner, this entire transaction was accidental, apparently unpremediated on the part of Christ, as it was certainly unexpected on the part of the woman. Yet see the great results that came out of it, for the woman, for the people among whom she lived, for the disciples, and for all the world. My friends, let me ask you by what standard of preparation or of ceremony shall we determine the most important events, the real crises of our individual lives? In how many instances do we really go into transactions which involve our highest good or our greatest loss as unexpectedly as that woman who went to draw water from Jacob's well! The most momentous issues of our being are not in the circumstances and seasons where we are most deliberately conscious of them-in our closets, in our Sunday worship, in our moments of high resolve and meditation. In these we may become braced and prepared for such issues; but the issues themselves occur in wayside opportunities-in our business, in our pleasure, in the common contact of daily life. The woman of Samaria was looking for the Messiah, but doubtless she expected him to be announced with some heralding of wonder, in some array of visible glory, on Mount Gerizim. She did not expect to find him in the shape of a tired traveler sitting on Jacob's well and asking for a drink of water. How is it with you, my friends? You expect to find God at church, in the statement of some formal religious truth, or in some gush of sympathetic devotion.