turbance in some
of the finer parts of its machinery, which no science can discover or
rectify; a delicate fibre shadowed by a cloud passing over the sun; or
a nerve chilled by a lowering of the temperature of the atmosphere,
will tell on the most genial temper, relax the strongest intellect,
and dim the brightest imagination; while other physical causes, quite
as mysterious, can make reason reel and lunacy become ascendant. The
very infirmities of old age; the constant toil required to satisfy
our cravings for food and raiment; the wounds and bruises the body
receives, and which agonise it, and the deformity which so often
disfigures it, cramping the spirit within a narrow and iron
prison-house--these form a terrible deduction from that joy which we
are capable of deriving even now through the medium of our physical
organisation. Such evils cannot here be rectified. They are the
immediate, or more remote consequences of man's iniquity; and under
Christ belong to that education by which bodily suffering is made the
means of disciplining the soul for immortality. But in the new heavens
and the new earth the body will no longer experience fatigue in
labour, or be subject to hurtful influences from the elements, nor
ever grow old; but be glorious and beautiful as the risen body of
Jesus Christ! "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and
there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither
shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away."
I wonder not, indeed, that Paul should exclaim along with those who
had the first-fruits of the Spirit, "Even we ourselves groan within
ourselves, waiting for the adoption, that is, the _redemption of our
body_."

With these bright hopes let us who are now alive seek to glorify God
in the body which is to be glorified together with Christ. "The body
is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body." "Know ye not that your
bodies are the members of Christ?" "Know ye not that your bodies are
temples of the Holy Ghost? If any man defile that temple, him will God
destroy." "When Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall ye
also appear with him in glory. Mortify therefore your members which
are upon the earth." Let us honour the body as a holy thing; and
beware how we put the chains of slavery upon it, or from our
selfishness expose it to hunger and nakedness. Let us endeavour even
to make art, that ministers to our sense of the beautiful, minister