h
can do us no good. Yes, they are dead forms to those who are dead, but
they are living forms to those who are living. If you come here in a
dead way, not in faith, not coming for a blessing, without your hearts
being in the service, you will get no benefit from it. But if you come
in a living way, in faith, and hope, and reverence, and with holy
expectant hearts, then all that takes place will be a living service
and full of heaven.

Make use, then, of this Holy Easter Season, which lasts forty to fifty
days, to become more like Him who died for you, and who now liveth for
evermore. He promises us, "Because I live, ye shall live also." He,
by dying on the Cross, opened the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers.
He first died, and then He opened heaven. We, therefore, first
commemorate His death, and then, for some weeks in succession, we
commemorate and show forth the joys of heaven. They who do not rejoice
in the weeks after Easter, would not rejoice in heaven itself. These
weeks are a sort of beginning of heaven. Pray God to enable you to
rejoice; to enable you to keep the Feast duly. Pray God to make you
better Christians. This world is a dream,--you will get no good from
it. Perhaps you find this difficult to believe; but be sure so it is.
Depend upon it, at the last, you will confess it. Young people expect
good from the world, and people of middle age devote themselves to it,
and even old people do not like to give it up. But the world is your
enemy, and the flesh is your enemy. Come to God, and beg of Him grace
to devote yourselves to Him. Beg of Him the will to follow Him; beg of
Him the power to obey Him. O how comfortable, pleasant, sweet,
soothing, and satisfying is it to lead a holy life,--the life of
Angels! It is difficult at first; but with God's grace, all things are
possible. O how pleasant to have done with sin! how good and joyful to
flee temptation and to resist evil! how meet, and worthy, and fitting,
and right, to die unto sin, and to live unto righteousness!

[1] Rom. ii. 28, 29.

SERMON XIV.

Religion pleasant to the Religious.

"_O taste and see how gracious the Lord is; blessed is the man that
trusteth in Him._"--Psalm xxxiv. 8.

You see by these words what love Almighty God has towards us, and what
claims He has upon our love. He is the Most High, and All-Holy. He
inhabiteth eternity: we are but worms compared with Him. He would not
be less happy though