ask for Divine light, guidance, and protection, and for grace to help in time of need, you will do well, and will feel satisfaction and peace; but if you would have fulness of joy, ask for much of the love of God.

And ever remember that if you keep yourselves in the love of God, He will continue to manifest His love towards you, and to shed it still more copiously in your heart, and will grant you according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled with all the fulness of God; Eph. iii, 16.

Constantly attend to reading, hearing, and every other means; be faithful and diligent in the Divine service; walk in the light, and earnestly and constantly pray for grace and power to keep yourselves in the love of God.

A MESSAGE FROM THE LORD.

2 KINGS, xx, 1.

"Thus saith the Lord:-Set thine house in order, for thou shalt die, and not live."

Ir is very pleasant to be the bearer of good tidings; but the servant of the Lord should always be ready to do His will, whether it be pleasant or otherwise. The

prophet Isaiah was a good example of this; the word that came to him from God, he faithfully told to them to whom it was sent, whether it was joyous or grievous. In the reign of Hezekiah, king of Judah, the king of Assyria sent his general to invade Judah, and to take Jerusalem; he also sent a blasphemous, threatening, and insulting letter to Hezekiah, and he received it at the hands of the messengers, and read it, and went into the house of God, and spread it before the Lord, and prayed, and said," O Lord, our God, I beseech Thee, save Thou us out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that Thou art the Lord God, even Thou only chap. xix, 14-20. It was the prayer of faith; it was fervent and effectual; God heard it in high heaven, and He sent Isaiah to Hezekiah with a reviving message, (ver. 20,) concluding with these words:"Thus saith the Lord, concerning the king of Assyria: -He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a bank against it: by the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, saith the Lord; for I will defend this city to save it, for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake.” And the angel of death invaded the Assyrian camp, and smote one hundred and eighty-five thousand men, and made them all dead corpses; and the haughty tyrant fled by the way which he came, to Nineveh, and was slain by

his own sons.

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In those days, in that memorable year, was Hezekiah sick unto death. For the purpose of keeping the narrative unbroken, the invasion by the king of Assyria, and the destruction of his army, are mentioned before the sickness of Hezekiah. It appears, however, from the sixth verse of this chapter, that the destruction in the camp did not take place till after the sickness of the king. But during that year was Hezekiah sick unto death; and Isaiah, the son of Amos, came to him with this depressing message:-Thus saith the Lord-Set thine house in order, settle the affairs of thy kingdom, appoint a successor for his son Manasseh was not yet born-for thou shalt die, and not live. And he turned his face, and prayed in a plaintive strain :-"I beseech

Thee, O Lord, remember now, how I have walked before Thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in Thy sight!" And Hezekiah wept

sore.

The message was certainly a heavy one for a king; but still he should not have been so distressed and surprised, for it was only the common lot of his forefathers. His great predecessor, David, slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David, and Solomon, his son, reigned in his stead; and the magnificent Solomon, he slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David, and Rehoboam, his son, reigned in his stead. And Rehoboam, and Abijah, and Asa, and Jehoshaphat, and Jehoram, and Ahaziah, and Joash, and Amaziah, and Uzziah, and Jotham-they each and all slept with their fathers. Ahaz also slept with his fathers, and Hezekiah, his son, reigned in his stead. And when he had reigned fourteen years, he was sick unto death; but the Lord added to his life fifteen years, and then, when he had reigned nine-and-twenty years in Jerusalem, he slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the chiefest of the sepulchres of the sons of David; and all Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, did him honour at his death.

The message which was addressed to Hezekiah, king of Judah, by Isaiah, the son of Amos, is sent to every one of you; thus saith the Lord to each of you :-"Set thine house in order, for thou shalt die, and not live.” He who has sent you this message is the Lord, the God of truth, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that therein is, who keepeth truth for ever; the God of power, who killeth and maketh alive; who bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up: He hath said,— Thou shalt die; and this is all He hath said about it. He hath not said how: it may be by lingering disease, by sudden death, or by accident. He hath not said where it may be upon your bed, or in your chair, or in the field, or in the street, or in your shop, or in the factory; at home or abroad. He hath not said when: it may be in a few years, a few months, a few weeks, a few days, nay, even this very night your soul may be required of you: these are secret things which belong

only unto God; the thing revealed, and which belongs to you is-Set thine house in order, for thou shalt die, and not live.

I. But what do these solemn words portend? What is it to die? This is also a mystery; we cannot say what it is. We speak upon some subjects from expeience, some from observation, and some from the testimony of others; but none of these will apply in this case. Of death we have had no experience. We may have been nigh unto death, to the very margin of the grave, but we were saved from going down to the pit; we were rescued from the jaws of death; we were brought up from the grave, and had not experience of death. We cannot speak of death from observation. We may have seen persons die; we may have kept watch over them in their last moments, and as the time drew nigh, we saw the signs cf death-the cold sweat, the glassy eye, the dying glance; we drew near; gave what help we could; we saw them to the very brink, but then they passed from life to death! we lost them; nothing was left but the lifeless clay; we went not with them into the region of death. Nor we cannot speak from the testimony of others. We can call to our recollection many that have died, but none of them have returned to tell us what it is to die; they passed through the valley of the shadow of death, into that unknown land of deepest shade, and we saw them no more, neither has there been any utterance whatever. The dead are silent; they keep their grand secret; you may and will go to them, and learn it, but they will not come again unto you. We can only speak from analogy. When the crimson fluid ceased to flow from the heart, and pulsation and respiration stopped, they seemed to sleep with their fathers, the spirit departed, and there was a great change.

II. Yes, the dead experience a change of state and condition. At death there is, not annihilation, but separation of soul and body; the dust returns to dust as it was, and the spirit unto God who gave it. There is then an end of this state of probation. The spirit enters the mysterious place of spiritual existence, and knows its future and eternal destiny. It exists in a state of

happiness or of woe, waiting the judgment of the great day. They also find a change of place. No longer on earth; the stirring scenes of this chequered life are over with them; they are not now in their wonted place here: not in that dwelling, that room, that chair, that shop, that factory, that farm, that sanctuary, that theatre, that tavern, but gone to the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, or to the place where their worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched. · They have also a change of company. They are not now with their companions upon earth; not in the congregation of worshippers, not in the prayer-meeting, not in the church-meeting, not in the social circle, not walking in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standing in the way of sinners, nor sitting in the seat of the scornful. They have now joined the innumerable company and church of the first-born which are written in heaven, or else they are with the devil and his angels, and wicked spirits in hell. They have also found a change of employment. They are not now following their callings here; not preaching, teaching, nor visiting; not worshipping in the temple, nor singing in the great congregation of the saints; not laying up much goods for many years, and soliloquizing with the soul about eating and drinking, and making merry; not heaping up riches, and cannot tell who shall gather them: not making a mock at sin, not wasting the substance with riotous living, but singing the song of Moses and the Lamb, and conversing with the glorified, and tasting the pleasures which are at God's right hand, and drinking of the pure river of the water of life in heaven, or else weeping, and wailing, and gnashing the teeth in hell, where the smoke of their torment ascendeth for ever and ever. Their doom is fixed; they will be extremely happy or miserable for ever! What a solemn reflection! How very important are life and death! The matter belongs to each of us. Every day we are either treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath, or else we are laying up treasures in heaven. And what is our life? It is even a vapour that endureth for a short time, and then vanisheth away. O let us redeem the time! Prepare to meet thy God! and what thou