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graph lines which so wonderfully conveyed messages to the soul, these too are cut by the invading army of worms! But why should we have it otherwise, dear friends, for the spirit has gone and is beyond the reach of the enemy? Yet oh, how we love the body in which the soul has dwelt! And there is unutterable comfort and hope in the truth of God that these bodies of ours shall be raised. "Though after my skin worms destroy this body," Job said, "yet in my flesh shall I see God." And no matter how destroyed, or how widely scattered the atoms of our bodies shall be, God will raise them up, just as from seed planted in the ground, and apparently disintegrated and destroyed, God raises up a new and wonderful body in the blooming plant, which lives a glorious resurrection life where death has seemed to take place. Like his resurrection body, so shall ours be; for there is the same quickening spirit in us if we are his. So, as we stand and look into the grave, it will give us hope to remember that Christ was there. "Come, see the place where the Lord lay." Any grave will answer; and we stand by enough of them, God knows.

Mr. Spurgeon was once traveling in Italy and came to an open gate over which was written in Latin, "And there was a garden." He entered through the open gate and saw a finger board on which was written, "And in the garden was a new tomb." He followed the path pointed out and came to a tomb, over which was written, "A new tomb, wherein never man was laid." He looked in and saw on the steps leading down into the tomb these words: "And stooping down, he looked, yet entered he not in." But just beyond were these words: "Come, see the place where the Lord lay." He went in, and there carved in marble were the napkin and the linen clothes lying, and these words:

"He is not here, for he is risen, as he said." Christ is our hope because he arose from the dead, because of his birth, life, death and resurrection.

V. But more than that, he is our hope because he ascended up into heaven. "And he led them out as far

up his hands (those pierced And it came to pass, while

as to Bethany, and he lifted hands!) and blessed them. he blessed them, he was parted from them and carried up into heaven." There Stephen saw him standing on the right hand of God. There "he ever liveth to make intercession for us." And now "if any man sin we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." He carried our nature with him into heaven, our human nature, which he took upon himself when he became flesh. In his resurrection body he went back to glory. This is why he is our hope.

VI. But more than that, he is our hope because he is coming again. "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven."

And now we may say, each one of us for himself, if indeed we have accepted him as our Savior, "I know that my redeemer liveth." "My redeemer!" Literally,

my goel, my kinsman." It was the right of the kinsman to buy back an estate which had become forfeited. So it is the right of our kinsman to buy back for us the estate, the body, which death takes away from us. But the redeemer was also an avenger. What horrible in

jury death has done us! But the avenger is on his track. And see! Death is fleeing away! But he is sure to be overtaken. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. "I know that my redeemer liveth." How many are there who do not dare to say "I know." They say "I hope so," or "I trust so." But these

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things are written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life." "I know that my redeemer liveth." Oh, can you say it? You may not be able to say that much else is yours, but you may say, "My redeemer is mine." He is the only piece of property, one has said, which is really ours. We borrow all else, the house, the children, nay, our very body we must return to the great lender. But Jesus we can never leave; for even when we are absent from the body we are present with the Lord; even death cannot separate us from him.

Beloved, have you Christ? It may be you hold him with a feeble hand; you half think it is presumption to say, "He is my redeemer." Yet remember, if you have but faith as a grain of mustard seed, that little faith entitles you to say, "I know that my redeemer liveth."

THE PALM TREE CHRISTIAN.

BY REV. WILLIAM BRYANT,*

Pastor First Presbyterian Church, Mt. Clemens.

Text: "The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree.” Ps. 92:12.

A traveler in Africa has given us this picture :"On the northern border of the Great Desert, at the foot of the Atlas Mountains, the groves of date palms form the great feature of that parched region, and few trees besides can maintain an existence. The excessive dryness of this arid tract, where rain seldom falls, is such that wheat refuses to grow, and even barley, maize and caffre corn afford the husbandman only a scanty and uncertain crop. The hot blasts from the south are scarcely supportable even by the native himself, and yet here forests of date palms flourish and form a screen impervious to the rays of the sun, beneath the shade of which the orange, the lemon and the pomegranate are cherished, and the vine climbs up by means of its twisted tendrils; and although reared in constant shade, all these fruits acquire a more delicious flavor than in what would seem a more favorable climate."

The Psalmist, writing in the land of Judea in its

* Mr. Bryant was born at Folkestone, England, 1850, and married 1872 in Jersey City, N. J. Being ordained 1879, he was pastor at East Lake George, N. Y., 1879-1881; at Argyle, N. Y., 1881-1883; at Grundy Center, Iowa, 1883-1888; at Marshalltown, Iowa, 1888-1893; at Mt. Clemens, 1893In 1894 he became editor of The Michigan Presbyterian.

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