ld
have had better news to bring home than this, that those whom we have
honoured and loved on earth have lost the power which they used once to
have of comforting us who are struggling below.

No, we will believe--what every one who loses a beloved friend comes
sooner or later to believe--that those whom we have honoured and loved,
though taken from our eyes, are near to our spirits; that they still
fight for us under the banner of their Master, Christ, and still work for
us by virtue of His life of love, which they live in Him and by Him for
ever.

Pray to them, indeed, we need not, as if they would help us out of any
self-will of their own. They do God's will, and not their own; and go on
God's errands, and not their own. If we pray to God our Father Himself,
that is enough for us. And what shall we pray? "Father, Thy will be
done on earth as it is in heaven."

_Good News of God_, _Sermons_.

Is not that one thought that our beloved ones sleep in Christ Jesus
enough? They sleep in Jesus, and therefore in infinite tenderness,
sympathy, care, and love. They sleep in Jesus; and He is the Life, and
therefore they sleep in Life. They sleep in Jesus; and He is the Light,
and therefore they sleep in Light. They sleep in Jesus; and He is Love,
and therefore they sleep in Love. And what better? This is better--that
they who sleep in Jesus must surely awaken. For, as it is written, His
is a quickening, awakening, life-giving Spirit, and so to sleep in Him is
to sleep in the very fount and core of life and power. If from Jesus all
our powers and talents come here on earth, surely He will give us more
and nobler, when we sleep in Him, and wake in Him to a risen and eternal
life. And more, it is written that them that sleep in Jesus will He
bring with Him. At the last day we shall see face to face those we
loved--and before that--oh! doubt it not. Oftentimes when Christ draws
near our spirits He comes not alone, but loving souls, souls whom we knew
in the flesh on earth, bear up His train, and hover near our hearts and
join their whispers to the voice and inspiration of Him who loved us, and
who will guide us with counsel here, and after that receive us into
glory, where we shall meet those beloved ones--not as our forefathers
dreamed, as meagre shadows flitting through dreary and formless chaos--but
as we knew them once--the body of the flesh alone put off, but the real
body, the spiritual body to which flesh