CHRIST'S RESURRECTION.

Is it a thing incredible that God should raise the Saviour, because, forsooth, the philosophy of that brave little being that lives in a mud cottage, a house of clay, has objections to offer to the resurrection of the dead? Must heaven suspend the everlasting song to the Lamb, until man is convinced that he is worthy of these honors ?

CHARACTER OF CHRIST.

The history of our Saviour, throughout so luminous and interesting, increases in glory as it draws to its termination. The brightest page of his memoir is the last. And from the cross, where it was intended his life should go out in infamy, the moral glory of his character shines forth in its fullest effulgence. The things that were most remarkable on that day, were not the sun's withholding his light, nor the earth's trembling, nor the grave's disinterring its dead. There was a moral display more remarkable still, in the deportment and language of the dignified sufferer. Who could witness it without saying, "Truly this was the Son of God?"

Ah, the poor and the wretched know not what a friend they would find in Jesus, if they should betake themselves to him, else they would not delay as they do.

When Jesus only wept at the grave of Lazarus, they said, "Behold how he loved him." With how much more force may we, who see his agony in the garden and his sufferings on the cross, exclaim, Behold how he loved us, even unto death!

WHAT A SAVIOUR!

What Christian has not sometimes given expression to the feelings of his heart in some such language as this, "What a Saviour!" That there should be to us, lost and ruined sinners, any Saviour, is marvellous mercy is worthy of our highest admiration. But that there should be to us such a Saviour, is still more astonishing. I have thought that we might have had a Saviour, who should have been able to save us, and should have actually saved many, and yet not been such a Saviour as him we have. Less tender, less condescending, less forbearing, I have thought he might have been, and yet have been a Saviour. Perhaps I have thought wrong. But certainly there is in the character of the blessed Jesus, much to draw forth the exclamation, "What a Saviour!"

It seems as if Jesus had said more kind things, and done more kind acts, than were absolutely necessary to have been said and done by him. Need he have made that apology for his disciples-who could sleep when he was in his agony-" the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak?" I wonder how they could have slept in such an hour; but I wonder more, at the apology their Master made for them. Need he have uttered that prayer on the cross, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do?" We don't expect such things from the innocent, when dying by the hand of violence. If he had maintained silence during these hours of inconceivable anguish, we should have been satisfied. But oh! think of his forgetting himself, and when they were deriding and in every way insulting him, hear him meekly addressing his Father on their behalf, asking him to forgive them, and pleading for them that they knew not what they did. It was not necessary that he should have paid any visible attention to the supplication of the thief. It could not have been expected of him. But that he should have turned his head and looked such forgiveness and love, while he said, "This day, thou shalt be with me in paradise," is a strange mystery of love.

"What a Saviour!" How wonderfully constituted! He was God, as it was necessary he should be, and yet not merely God, but man too. A Saviour with two natures, one reaching up to God, the other down to us. How wonderful that he should not only have taken our nature, but come down to our condition, and surrounded himself with our circumstances, become subject to

such temptations as we are subject to: Oh, "What a Saviour!" Why, he knows from experience, what pain is; he has had the trials I have; he has been through this vale of tears; he knows how I am tried; he remembers how he was tried. If he never smiled, yet he wept-even over the very city and people whose soil and hands were about to be stained with his blood.

I wonder I love him so little; I wonder he is not more precious to me; I wonder any should be offended in him. How can he appear a root out of a dry ground! Why don't all see his form and comeliness?

"I WOULD SEE JESUS."

Because he is an infinitely lovely and an inexpressi bly admirable object. All divine and human excellences meet and are beautifully blended in him. All that is amiable and all that is august unite in him. Who would not desire to behold such an object?

Because the divine character shines forth most conspicuously in him. He is "the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of his person." "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, HE hath declared him." And "he that hath seen the Son, hath seen the Father." For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to

give the light of the knowledge to the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." Even in heaven, "this Jehovah is the light thereof."

Because a sight of him, especially a sight of him on the cross, reveals our sinfulness and guilt, and is calculated to produce conviction. For, why was he there? What made his agony and death necessary? What but our sins was it that oppressed his soul and nailed his body to the tree? Who can understandingly contemplate the cross of Christ, and not feel that he is a sinner? Nor does it reveal merely the fact of our sinfulness, but the evil of it also, as both odious and mischievous. For had it not been for the extreme malignity of sin, an atonement of such value would not have been necessary, a victim of such dignity would not have been required, nor such an amount of suffering exacted of him. He, for whom God's only begotten. Son died, must not only be a sinner, but a great sinner, a sinner of great unworthiness; and this is a necessary part of conviction. It is not enough that we be convinced we are sinners. We must also feel that we are great sinners, and that sin is a great evil. When we take this view of a crucified Saviour, then we see that there is no exaggeration in the language, which represents us as having pierced him. And contemplating him as pierced by and for our sins, repentance follows; as it is written, "They shall look on him whom they have pierced and mourn." And repentance is never so deep and bitter as when a sight of Christ crucified excites it. 66 'They shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for a firstborn." Hence,