Thy God hath said 'tis good for thee In the full sunshine of His smile." May the sentiments and conduct, which caused the Roman soldier's character to be for ever memorable, be reproduced continually in your lives and principles, Volunteers—and may you, and all of us, experience in life, in death, and in eternity, the blessedness of that acceptance with God, which made him for ever happy and is breathed in the Divine words of welcome, "as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee!" Amen. SERMON IV. THE GREAT LESSON OF SPRING. PSALM lxxxviii., 10. "Wilt Thou show wonders to the dead? shall the dead arise and praise Thee?" Winter, with its dreamy desolateness of aspect, has come and gone. We have witnessed, in a variety of forms, the decay, decomposition, and seeming extinction of this earth's natural beauties. Over fruit, and flower, and leafy luxuriance of vegetation, the icy breath of Winter has passed with shrivelling power; till, far and wide, and everywhere, there has prevailed the appearance of animation held in abeyance! Nature has worn upon every feature a death-like hue; her energies have been suspended; her productive powers have been stayed and dormant ; her beautiful creations, in all their endless variety of form and object, have been swept off by that universal doom of dissolution, under which (to borrow the Apostle's inspired language) "all creation groaneth, and travaileth in pain together until now—waiting for .. the Redemption!" In all this uniformity of desolateness and dissolution, the world, which we inhabit, has supplied a voice for the Divine warning: "all flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field. The grass withereth, the flower thereof fadeth away." "Man that is born of a woman is of few days; he cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down!" Nature's commentary upon the Word of God, which has warned us that our days are numbered and only an allotted time on earth is ours, and that sooner or later (as God has willed,) our bodies must return to the dust and be a prey to corruption, is startling and impressive. The foot of pride is arrested, and the throb of ambition and pleasure ceases, as the emblems of winter meet the eye, and irresistibly the mind is taken captive by the reflection, "man dieth and wasteth away; yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?" "Tis not for the ravage of winter we mourn; 66 When? In God's good time,' answers the Bible. Thy dead men shall live," exclaims the voice of God by the mouth of Isaiah, "with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead!" And, as in winter for our mourning, so now in spring-tide for our consolation, nature gives echo to the Word of revealed truth, and illustrates the glorious doctrine of a resurrection before our eyes. On all sides we are made to observe vitality bursting forth from what death lately preyed upon. Out of the perished seed emerges the living plant; bud, and leaf, and flower are hastening to testify that life can and will emanate from decay and dissolution. Yea, from flower-bed and hedge-row, from field and brake, from copse and forest, now ascends a living testimony, in beauty and perfume and unison, to the fact that, which thou sowest, is not quickened except it die!" And the finger of God points out to us the lovely illustration, while the pen of inspiration records the doctrine, “so also is the resurrection of the dead! it is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory!" 66 "Rise "Dark doubts between the promise and event? "I send thee not to volumes for thy cure; "Read nature; nature is a friend to truth: "Nature is Christian, preaches to mankind; "And bids dead matter aid us in our creed !" Let us endeavour to rightly employ, under God's blessing, these subjects for meditation! may the Holy Spirit profitably guide our minds to a right appreciation of the great truth that "though, after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God." St. Paul styles the man, who doubts this, "a fool." He exclaims, "thou fool! that, which thou sowest, is not quickened except it die!” We cannot, therefore, hesitate to affirm that there are amply sufficient reasons to convince any sincere enquirer of the fact of a resurrection. We will, in a matter of so much consequence, review those reasons which appear to be prominent. Some will assume the form of answers to suggested difficulties, and others will be arguments in support of statements advanced in Holy Writ. We have to meet suggested difficulties. Men sometimes will say, 'how can we believe that the cold senseless`corpse, which we have con |