and blood was but a husk and
shell, living and loving more fully, more utterly, than even before,
because it is in Christ who is the fount of life, and freed in Him for
ever from hell and death.

And if you wish for a sign that this is so, come to holy communion and
take the bread and wine as a sign that your bodies and theirs, your souls
and theirs, are fed from the same fount of everlasting life--the dead and
risen and ever living body of Christ Jesus, which He has given to be the
life of the world.

_MSS. Sermons_.

We know that afflictions do come--terrible bereavements, sorrows sad and
strange. There they are, God help us all. But from whom do they come?
Who is Lord of life and death? Who is Lord of joy and sorrow? Is not
that the question of all questions? And is not the answer the most
essential of all answers? It is the Holy Spirit of God; the Spirit who
proceedeth from the Father and the Son; the Spirit of the Father who so
loved the world, that He spared not His only begotten Son; the Spirit of
the Son who so loved the world that He stooped to die for it upon the
Cross; the Spirit who is the Comforter, and says, "I have seen thy ways
and will heal thee, I will lead thee also, and restore comforts to thee
and to thy mourners. I speak peace to him that is near and to him that
is afar off, saith the Lord; and I will heal him." Is not that the most
blessed news, that He who takes away, is the very same as He who gives?
That He who afflicts is the very same as He who comforts?

_All Saints-Day Sermons_.

Oh! blessed news, that God Himself is the Comforter. Blessed news, that
He who strikes will also heal; that He who gives the cup of sorrow will
also give the strength to drink it. Blessed news, that chastisement is
not punishment, but the education of a Father. Blessed news, that our
whole duty is the duty of a child--of the Son who said in His agony,
Father, not my will, but Thine be done. Blessed news, that our Comforter
is the Spirit who comforted Christ the Son Himself; who proceeds both
from the Father and the Son, and who will tell us that in Christ we are
really and literally the children of God, who may cry to Him in our
extreme need, "Father," with full understanding of all that that royal
word contains.

_All Saints-Day Sermons_.

II. OUT OF THE DEEP OF SIN.

Innumerable troubles are come about me. My sins have taken such hold
upon me, that I am not able to look up; y