beauties of this lower creation unite with all the recollections of a Saviour's love in calling upon the assembled saints on earth, to praise and magnify their great Creator, and adorable Redeemer, whilst every thing that hath breath is summoned by the voice of nature and inspiration, to sing and make melody unto their Lord,* who does not see in figure, and almost in reality participate, the worship of those courts above, the homage, in mansions of the redeemed, of the assembly of the just made perfect, where the spirits and souls of the righteous, freed from the incumbrance of earth, and the cares of time, chant forth celestial songs from harps attuned only to praise, and happiness, and joy!

But while this gladsome season, addressing our senses, thus awakens within us a sentiment of religious feeling, how powerfully does it speak to our understanding also, assuring our minds, by the analogies which it presents, of the justice, the certainty, and the reasonableness of the Christian's hope!

True it is, that they who were destitute of revelation, gathered from this season of renovated being, no confidence of renovated being for themselves. Those very analogies from which we derive assurance were found, before the Gospel had brought life and immortality to light, to inspire

* Archdeacon Stow's Charge. Quarterly Theological Review, April, 1827.

melancholy and sadness instead of hope and joy. Listen, for a moment, to the voice of lamentation and despondency, with which a heathen poet utters the thoughts suggested to his mind by the return of spring.

"Alas! the tender herbs and flowery tribes,
"Though crush'd by winter's unrelenting hand,
"Revive and rise when vernal zephyrs call:
"But we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise,
"Bloom, flourish, fade, and fall:

"And then succeeds

"A long, long, silent, dark, oblivious sleep;
"A sleep, which no propitious power dispels,

"Nor changing seasons, nor revolving years."

Against these despairing views, but far more reasonable than they, and ss if responsive to. them, may be placed the reproving questions which Christianity prompts,

"Ah! in those silent realms of night,
"Shall peace and hope no more arise?
"No future morning light the tomb,
"Nor day-star gild the morning skies?

"Shall spring the faded world revive?
"Shall waining moons their light return?
Again shall setting suns ascend?
"And the lost day anew be born?

"Shall life re-visit dying worms?
"And spread the joyful insects wing?
"And oh! shall man awake no more,

"To see thy face, thy praise to sing?"

Reasonable as these questions would seem to be, yet must it be granted that so long as the experience of all mankind afforded no satisfac

tory answer, there was sufficient cause for apprehension and despondency. It was revelation alone, confirmed and demonstrated in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which could give confidence to these expectations of a future life; which eould enable us to know and be assured of these sublime but fearful truths-that the dead shall be raised incorruptible, that the hour is coming when all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of man, and shall come forth, they that have done good to the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation.

This disclosure being distinctly made, and this confirmation being given in the person of Jesus Christ, he himself appeals for proof of their certainty to these very analogies of the natural world, about which reason had already been employed.

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Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground "and die, said our Saviour, it abideth alone; "but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit ;" and St. Paul, in reproving the objection of such as opposed the doctrine of the resurrection, as if it were absurd, reminds them of the same thing. "That which thou sowest is not quickened ex

cept it die." And when we behold the inert and lifeless seed which is sowed in the earth, reviving out of corruption and death, springing up in gracefulness and strength, spreading its leaves to the sun and the dews, expanding its

glorious flowers to the sight, and sending forth its grateful odours upon the air, how perfectly should we confide in the power and truth of him whose word has promised to us, worms of the dust, who inherit these frail and mortal bodies, that though sown in corruption, they shall be raised in incorruption; though sown in dishonour, they shall be raised in glory; though sown in weakness, they shall be raised in power! And at this season especially, when every thing that meets our view presses upon our thoughts the certainty of the Christian's hope, with what undoubted assurance should we cherish the belief that

"Heaven's immortal spring shall yet årrive, "And man's majestic beauty bloom again,

"Bright through the eternal year of love's triumphant reign."

As being addressed to the Church of God, the redeemed, and as indicating the blessings which the appearance of the Messiah would bring to mankind, the words of the text were originally spoken, and the image is just as well as beautiful. "Now that dismal time is past, wherein error,

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ignorance, and wickedness, overflowed the "world, as floods do the earth in the season of "winter, those cloudy and uncomfortable days "are gone. All the tokens of a new scene appear, "and invite thee to come and partake of those joys and pleasures which the near approaches "of the Sun of Righteousness produce. His

"coming makes all manner of blessings spring "up in rich abundance. The hopes of those who "were as dead revive; and they receive the "earnest and beginnings of that future bliss, the

expectation of which is our greatest comfort in "this life, and the consumation of it our highest "happiness in the next." My brethren, these advantages vouchsafed to the world at the coming of Christ, and so abundantly placed within our power, we should ever strive to improve, nor can we want the highest motives to do so, if we carry forward our views to the circumstances of that future state which his word has disclosed, to that predicted period of which this season, as often as it recurs, is so fit and beautiful an emblem-the period when the promise of Christ shall be fulfilled, "Behold I make all things 66 new."

This is the fiat which has gone forth from him by whom all things were made, and without whom was not any thing made that was made. He who in the beginning created the heaven and the earth, who set them in order, and endowed them with beauty, who imparted to them their motions, and prescribed their laws, and by whom they have been continued to this day, has said, "Be"hold, I create new heavens and a new earth, "and the former shall not be remembered, nor "come into mind."

St. John, in the Revelation, has described the