wise counsellor and an ever-sympathizing friend. Her servants were to her the objects of maternal solicitude, for kindness marked all her behaviour towards her inferiors in station; whilst, if occasion required that she should administer reproof, her Christian manner of performing this difficult duty was, to retire with those in fault to her private chamber, and there pour out a prayer to GoD on their behalf. The poor and sick always found her heart and hand ready to relieve their wants; and many in this parish can testify the benefits they have derived from her bounty, her instructions, and her prayers. Few Christians have adorned the doctrine of GOD our Saviour by such a long course of consistent holiness, such humility and gentleness of spirit, and so much active usefulness.

Why do I dwell on these particulars? It is that we may be led to glorify GoD for the grace which He bestowed on His servant, for which she is now adoring, and will for ever adore, His loving-kindness; and that we may be animated to follow her as she followed Christ; for, be it remembered, the formation of her Christian character is to be traced, under GOD, to her diligence and earnestness in seeking Him. The Bible was her constant companion; and though she possessed a taste which could fully appreciate works of polite literature, it was remarked that the word of God not

only had always her preference, but latterly engaged the greater portion of her time when alone. Prayer too, spiritual, fervent, persevering prayer, was the secret of her strength; and it is believed that it was her habit, on leaving and entering her house, to lift up her heart to GOD in prayer for His blessing, or praise for His mercy. She was a constant attendant in the house of GOD and at the table of her LORD; and her presence in this church on the last Sunday of her life, when the weather was so unfavourable, shows that she was too much in earnest to be kept away from Divine ordinances by trifling excuses. Need I add that watchfulness also was the habit of her mind -watchfulness against occasions of sin, and for opportunities of usefulness? Without any ostentatious display of religious pretensions, she lived like "a servant waiting for the coming of his lord," and was suddenly called "to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better," at the time when she, with her household, was assembled at evening family worship. While this chapter was being read, and, as nearly as can be recollected, when the verse was being repeated which declares that "there remaineth a rest to the people of GOD," she was translated instantaneously from 'prayer in the church militant on earth to praise in the church triumphant in heaven.'

Happy termination of a happy life! or rather blessed commencement of a blessed existence which shall never terminate! 66 Being dead she yet speaketh" to us; and the remembrance of her devotedness to GOD, and of GOD's great love to her, calls us in accents of kindest invitation to be imitators of her, "who through faith and patience now inherits the promises." Who that contemplates such a life and death, must not acknowledge that the advantages of vital godliness are real and substantial indeed?

(2.) What little reason have we to mourn on account of the departure of Christian friends!

If they were partakers of Christ on earth, we know that they are now sharers of His joy in heaven. That is a selfish feeling which would detain them from their rest, in order that they might still tread the rough paths of the world by our side.' Though parted from us, they are not lost to us;-they are still ours. It often happens that our dear relatives leave us, in the course of God's providence, to dwell in a foreign land; but we do not give them up as always to be separated from us on the contrary, our parting wish and continual hope is, that we may at some future day meet again. Just so, when the journey is not to a distant portion of this globe, but to the heavenly country, our cheerful anticipation should be, that we, if believers

for ever.

ourselves, shall soon join them there, to part no more When the LORD removed Job's heavy afflictions, we are told that He " gave unto Job twice as much as he had before." His previous "substance was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she asses." In his latter end the Lord doubled all these, so that "he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she asses." But how did the LORD act with regard to the family of Job? Doubtless he loved his children far better than his cattle, and mourned the death of the former far more than the plunder of the latter; yet the LORD gave Job only seven sons and three daughters, the same number that he had before. Now, what may the LORD have designed to teach Job by this apparent inequality in His dealings? Why did He restore to him twice as many sheep, and camels, and oxen, and asses, as before, but only the same number of sons and daughters? He thus reminded the patriarch, that his children which had died were not so lost to him as were the brute creatures which had been violently carried away by robbers. His children still lived, and still were his; so that, in restoring to him seven sons and three daughters, the LORD did really double the number of his children, though He gave him only as

many as he had before.

And, in like manner, our

beloved relatives, who have departed this life in God's faith and fear, are still ours, being only separated from us by the thin veil of death. And as another and another link, which fastens our hearts to this world, is cut away, it is forged in a new shape, to bind them to the world to come.

(3.) How earnestly should we seek to secure for ourselves an entrance into the heavenly rest!

The apostle delivers, in the chapter before us, two instructive exhortations in reference to this duty.

The first is an exhortation to fear :- -"Let us, therefore, fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into His rest, any of you should seem to come short of it." Of the six hundred thousand adult Israelites which came out of Egypt with Moses, only two entered into the promised land; all the rest perished in the wilderness, as we are expressly informed, "because of unbelief." No one fell short of Canaan in consequence of any weakness in himself, or any insurmountable difficulties in the way, or the insuperable force of any opposing enemy; and none of these causes, nor all of them combined, can prevent our admission into the heavenly Canaan, unless there be in us a want of true faith. The translators of the Bible have sometimes interchanged the words "unbelief" and "disobedience" in this