particle of the body, in process of time, passes from us, and the entire body is changed so that it is made up of an entirely new class of particles, is a supposition not only unproved, but one that is not susceptible of proof by any process known to human science. Certain it is that the bodily identity is still maintained through all the changes of the longest life. The man feels that the present is the same body-essentially-that he possessed in past time, and the same he will possess in the future. All his modes of thought, and all his consciousness of accountability, are based upon this idea. The old man, tottering upon the brink of the grave, still adheres to the thought that the body now worn out with age and enfeebled by disease, is essentially the same body that was fresh and blooming in the day of his youth. He does not say, "The body I then possessed was a lively, active body; but it has been exchanged for one that is decrepit and old." No, he says, "I have now exchanged the sprightliness of youth for the decrepitude of age." Thus, the bodily identity—that is, the idea of its being essentially the same body-seems as inseparable from us as life itself.

Great changes may take place in our bodies, within short periods of time, but we never waver in the recognition of their identity through all these changes. Disease may shrink us from the full habit to the skeleton form; we may suffer mutilation; the leg, the arm, may be ampu tated; the eye may be cut out; the flesh torn from the body; and the very form of humanity be almost obliterated; but we rise from all this suffering with an undoubted and unmistaken bodily identity still remaining.

The conclusion, then, to which we are led, is that much of our bodily nature, the coarser parts of the physical system, are not essential to bodily identity; but that the essence of our physical being is, in a sense, independent

of these and manufactured by them. In this view the objection loses all its force. Whatever changes take place in the coarser parts of the bodily system, the elemental part— the essence yet remains. And it is this that shall rise from the grave.

Does this appear mysterious? Take that clump of iron ore just from the quarry. Cast it into the furnace. Behold it there burning and seething in the lambent flames; its form changes; it is consumed; gone. But descend now, and behold the pure metal flowing from the furnace. Here again appears the clump; not, it is true, in its crude state, but freed from its earth; purged from its alloy, and ye preserving its elemental identity. Its essence is there. So shall it be with this earthly body as it passes through the furnace of death, and comes forth in the resurrection. "It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body;" for "flesh and blood can not inherit the kingdom of God." Therefore"the dead shall be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed."

III. IT IS OBJECTED TO THE RESURRECTION THAT THE ELEMENTS OF WHICH THE BODY IS COMPOSED ARE NOT ONLY DISSOLVED, BUT WASTED, SCATTERED, AND EVEN TRANSFORMED.

After death the body is soon decomposed. The gaseous and watery elements soon escape away, and the more solid parts soon crumble into dust. "The body of a dead man may be burnt to ashes, and the ashes may be blown about by the wind and scattered far and wide in the air and upon the earth. After it is resolved into its earthy or humid matter, it may be taken up by the vessels which supply plants with nutriment, and at length become constituent parts of the

substance of these plants."* By these and similar processes, the particles that constitute a single human body may be dispersed over half the globe, may have passed through innumerable transformations, and be combined with other bodies. How can these widely-scattered elements be gathered together? how is it possible that they should be again so reunited as to re-form the body that once crumbled and wasted?

This is indeed mysterious. But is not the organization of our present bodies also mysterious and inexplicable? May not each individual say, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made?" The earth, the air, the sea have all been laid under contribution. The elements that constitute our bodies

have been drawn from remote parts of the earth and from the depths of the sea. Some portions of these elements of our bodies have been drawn from the vegetable and animal productions of our own clime. Other portions are the productions of other climes-the tropical regions and the arctic, India and China, the islands of the sea and the mountains of the continents, the rivers and the oceans—have all brought their contributions to the erection of this mysterious temple. A thousand unappreciated and unseen influences have been working, under the all-controlling eye of God, to its completion. Let us, then, not stumble at the mysteriousness of the resurrection of the body from the dead till we have solved the mystery of its first organization. Let us not be over-perplexed because we can not tell how its scattered and wasted elements shall be gathered till we are able to tell how they were originally gathered and organized into a bodily system. If God has done the latter, may he not also be able to do the former?

"Sure the same Power

That reared the piece at first, and took it down,

Can reassemble the loose, scattered parts,

And put them as they were."

Gregory's Evidences, p, 424.

But this objection is absolutely deprived of all force, when we contemplate processes of daily occurrence, and especially the apparent impossibilities science may and has achieved. Take that ingot of gold. First tell its exact purity and weight, and then give it into the hands of the chemist. He files it to powder; and as you look upon it you say, "My gold will never be gathered again." The chemist gathers that dust and dissolves it in acids; then you exclaim, “I can not even see it; every particle is gone." Again he takes it, alloys it with other metals; he grinds it again to powder; he throws it into the fire; he mingles it with soot, and ashes, and charcoal; and at length, when it would seem as though its very elements were utterly destroyed, he brings it forth, the same fine gold, brilliant and pure as it was before it was subjected to the ordeal.* And does the skill of the chemist transcend the wonder-working power of Jehovah? Nay, the chemist may mistake; he may fail in his experiment; the precious gold may be lost. But over the garnered dust of his saints, God shall watch with that eye which never sleeps; and at the magic of his word, it shall be gathered together and again start to life.†

Resurrection of the Dead. By Dr. C. Kingsley, p. 33.

THE SILVER CUP.-THE RESURRECTION ILLUSTRATED.-Dr. Brown, in his Resurrection of Life, cites from Hallet the following beautiful illustration of tho resurrection:

"A gentleman of the country, upon the occasion of some signal service this man had done him, gave him a curious silver cup. David-for that was the man's name was exceedingly fond of the present, and preserved it with the greatest care. But one day, by accident, his cup fell into a vessel of aquafortis; he, taking it to be no other than common water, thought his cup safe enough; and, therefore, neglected it till he had dispatched an affair of importance, about which his master had employed him, imagining it would be then time enough to take out his cup. At length a fellow-servant came into the samo room, when the cup was near dissolved, and looking into the aquafortis, asked David who had thrown any thing into that vessel. David said that his cup accidentally fell into the water. Upon this, his fellow-servant informed him that it was not common water, but aquafortis, and that his cup was almost dissolved in it. When David heard this, and was satisfied of the truth of it with his own eyes, he heartily grieved for the loss of his cup; and at the same time, he was astonished to see the liquor as clear as if nothing at all had been dissolved in it, or

IV. IT IS OBJECTED AGAIN THAT SOME OF THE ELEMENTS WHICH CONSTITUTED A PART OF THE BODY OF ONE MAN AT DEATH, MAY ALSO ENTER INTO THAT OF ANOTHER MAN AT THE TIME OF HIS DEATH, AND HENCE IT WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE, IN THE RESURRECTION, TO RESTORE THE SAME PARTICLES TO BOTH THE BODIES CLAIMING THEM.

Some have grown facetious over this objection, and presented us with the grotesque picture of two souls contending over a lump of materiality, each claiming it as belonging to himself. This may avail something among those who substitute fancy for fact and argument. But our humorist should first learn, in so grave a matter, whether, even upon the hypothesis of a resurrection, such

mixed with it. As, after a little while, he saw the small remains of it vanish, and could not now perceive the least particle of the silver, he utterly despaired of seeing the cup more. Upon this, he bitterly bewailed his loss, with many tears, and refused to be comforted. His fellow-servant, pitying him in this condition of sorrow, told him their master could restore him the same cup again. David disregarded this as utterly impossible. 'What do you talk of?' said he to his fellow-servant. 'Do you not know that the cup is entirely dissolved, and not the least bit of the silver is to be seen? Are not all the little invisible parts of the cup mingled with the aquafortis, and become parts of the same mass? How then can my master, or any man alive, produce the silver anew, and restore my cup? It can never be; I give it over for lost; I am sure I shall never see it again.' "His fellow-servant still insisted that their master could restore the same cup; and David as earnestly insisted that it was absolutely impossible. While they were debating this point, their master came in, and asked them what they were disputing about. When they had informed him, he says to David, 'What you so positively pronounce to be impossible, you shall see me do with very little trouble. Fetch me,' said he to the other servant, 'some salt water, and pour it into the vessel of aquafortis. Now look,' says he; the silver will presently fall to the bottom of the vessel in a white powder.'

"When David saw this he began to have good hopes of seeing his cup restored. Next, his master ordered the servant to drain off the liquor and to take up the powdered silver and melt it. Thus it was reduced into a solid silver piece; and then, by the silversmith's hammer, formed into a cup of the same shape as before. Thus David's cup was restored with a very small loss of its weight and value.

"It is no uncommon thing for men like David in this parable, to imagine that to be impossible, which yet persons of greater skill and wisdom than them