desireth the shadow." Rest, rest to the sick heart and the weary brain,
to the long afflicted and the hopeless,--rest on the calm bosom of our
common mother. Welcome to the tired ear, stunned and confused with
life's jarring discords, the everlasting silence; grateful to the weary
eyes which "have seen evil, and not good," the everlasting shadow.

Yet over all hangs the curtain of a deep mystery,--a curtain lifted only
on one side by the hands of those who are passing under its solemn
shadow. No voice speaks to us from beyond it, telling of the unknown
state; no hand from within puts aside the dark drapery to reveal the
mysteries towards which we are all moving. "Man giveth up the ghost; and
where is he?"

Thanks to our Heavenly Father, He has not left us altogether without an
answer to this momentous question. Over the blackness of darkness a
light is shining. The valley of the shadow of death is no longer "a land
of darkness and where the light is as darkness." The presence of a
serene and holy life pervades it. Above its pale tombs and crowded
burial-places, above the wail of despairing humanity, the voice of Him
who awakened life and beauty beneath the grave-clothes of the tomb at
Bethany is heard proclaiming, "I am the Resurrection and the Life." We
know not, it is true, the conditions of our future life; we know not what
it is to pass fromm this state of being to another; but before us in that
dark passage has gone the Man of Nazareth, and the light of His footsteps
lingers in the path. Where He, our Brother in His humanity, our Redeemer
in His divine nature, has gone, let us not fear to follow. He who
ordereth all aright will uphold with His own great arm the frail spirit
when its incarnation is ended; and it may be, that, in language which I
have elsewhere used,