coffin-lid, and told you that earth had gone back to earth— when the separation from the object of your love was realized in all the desolation of bereavement, next to the thought that you should erelong see Christ as he is, and be like him, was not that consolation the strongest which assured you that the departed one, whom God has put from you into darkness, will run to meet you, when you cross the threshold of immortality, and, with the holy rapture to which the redeemed alone can give utterance, lead you to the exalted Savior, and with you bow down at his feet, and cast the conqueror's crown before him?" How sublime, how glorious these anticipations! Based, as they are, upon the eternal truth of God, and embodied in the elements of a pure and holy Christian faith, they seem almost to rend in twain the curtain that hides the invisible world from us. "And when glad faith doth catch Some echo of celestial harmonies, Archangels' praises, with the high response then, O doubting and fainting child of God, let thy heart revive! Thy dear, departed ones-"the dead in Christ"are there; "And ere thou art aware, the day may be When to those skies they'll welcome thee." VII. THE TRANSITION IN Death. Who has not felt the beauty and power of the following poetic description of the transition in death? Tread softly! bow the head, In reverent silence bow! Yet an immortal soul Is passing now. O change! O wondrous change! Burst are the prison bars! From all that the Bible teaches us, and from all we can learn by a careful scrutiny of the phenomena of death, we are brought to the conviction that the change which occurs is one of evolution and not of transformation. It is, like the event of our birth, a transition. Of this transition we can know by our reason but little more than the unborn infant knows of the transition which is to introduce it into a world of light. "The progress of the departed spirit is imagined with an intense eagerness of conjecture. Does it open its eyes at once, with sudden rapture or alarm, on a scene of unutterable wonders? Does it awake, as we awake from the sleep of night, so gently that the mind is conscious of no struggle, and scarcely of change from activity to slumber, and from slumber to activity again? Does it carry on a continuous thread of perception, and know at once the world which it has left, and the world which it has entered? Does it feel itself alone or among companions? Does the separation from this earth become wider and wider as it advances on the journey beyond the eternal hills? Can we attain to any conception of its sensations, its condition, or its prospects?" These questions are pressed upon us by the very conditions of our being, and by the certainty of that fate which awaits us. Their solution is a natural desire, even if not perfectly attainable here. Several facts have an important bearing upon the subject, and illustrate in no small degree this transition. It is evidently of short duration, if, indeed, it be any thing more than momentary. Our Savior said to the dying malefactor, "This day shalt thou be with me in paradise;" and yet it was not till just before sunset, at which moment the day ended, that the legs of the malefactor were broken. The Savior had before expired, but the dying agony of the penitent criminal, to whom the promise had been made, crowded hard upon the last moments of the closing day. And yet who shall say that the promise had not a literal fulfillment? Some have, for a few moments, vibrated, as it were, between earth and heaven, have almost passed the gates of death, and yet have been restored. Others have seemed to die, and yet come back to earth. To such what glimpses of the better land have come-faint adumbrations of glory yet to be realized! So glorious, as in the case of Mr. Tennant, that they were loth to speak of its hidden beauty, but sufficient in its power to wean from earth, and to create "a homesickness for the land which they had but seen from afar." The vision vouchsafed to such was like that of St. Paul when he was caught up into the heavens, and “heard unspeakable words which it is not lawful for man to utter." Then, too, the experience of the saint of God, when dying in the full triumph of a glorious and unclouded faith, has a touching lesson upon this subject. The idea that to such supernatural manifestations are made must be suggested to all who have witnessed their triumphant departure, and heard them speak of the glories revealed. Heaven itself often seems opened to their vision. Nor, indeed, does there any high degree of improbability attach itself to this idea. The dying linger for a moment on the confines of both worlds; and why may they not, when just leaving the one, catch some glimpse of the other? "Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view Who stand upon the threshold of the new." In death the natural and supernatural meet. The two worlds here bound upon each other. Heaven was opened to the vision of the dying Stephen. Angels gathered around the dying Lazarus, and we may well conceive that their glorious forms broke upon his vision while yet the earth had hardly faded from it. Said a little Sabbath school scholar from my flock, as she threw up her little wasted arms, her eye fixed upon some definite and glorious object, and her whole countenance beaming with unearthly luster, "Mother, the angels have come!" In a moment more she had joined the angel throng. The pious Blumhardt exclaimed, "Light breaks in! alleluiah!" and expired. Dr. M'Lain said, "I can now contemplate clearly the grand scene to which I am going." Dr. Bateman, a distinguished physician and philosopher, died exclaiming, "What glory! The angels are waiting for me!" It is no vain conception that spiritual messengers, as companions and guides, come down to greet the saint of God as he crosses over Jordan. But what light do these facts shed upon the transition through which we pass? Evidently this: that that transition may be but the work of a moment, and without even the suspension of our consciousness. We shall feel ourselves to be a living continuation of the past. We shall emerge into our new life probably not as by a sudden shock, creating sensations almost of alarm and terror, but as our eyes open to greet the dawning light of some glorious morning. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. Some may "sleep" for a longer or shorter period, as the soul makes its transit; and from that sleep they may emerge gradually to self-consciousness, and to a perception of their new state and new relations. The thoughts, the feelings, the wonderments, the amazements of soul with which we shall awaken to the conscious ness of another life will form a wonderful chapter in our mental history. Mr. Harbrough touches this theme so beautifully that we quote the passage entire: "When we awake from the swoon or sleep of death, or emerge through the change of death into the realities, circumstances, and affinities of another life, we suppose our first feeling will be that of consciousness of our own identity. We will feel and be conscious that we are ourselves and not another. This we can only do in connection with our past history. It may be the work of an instant; but still it involves a process by which the mind connects itself with what is past, and recollects its previous existence. Thus, for instance, we spend a night in the house of a friend; we wake in the morning suddenly, and scarcely know where we are or who we are. The mind at once enters upon a process of discovery by self-recollection; to do this it goes back and calls up its past history, remembers the way in which it has come, and soon full consciousness of itself and its relations is restored. So in the other world, after the change of death, a consciousness of identity must in some way be preserved. Suppose, however, that in the case of the person just instanced, sleeping in the house of his friend, the room should be furnished in a certain way when he lay down to sleep, and the furniture should be entirely removed and changed while he slept, the difficulty of coming to a consciousness of his identity would be greatly increased. In that case it would become necessary for him to depend upon pure recollection of the past in the way of thought and memory. This must be the case with our souls in passing through the change of death; we will find ourselves in new relations, circumstances, and affin ities, and our consciousness of personal identity can continue only as it feels itself the living continuation of the past." This feeling will assuredly come. We may lose it, |