dust;
Grave! the treasury of the skies;
Every atom of thy trust
Rests in hope again to rise!"

Let us seek to have the eye of faith fixed and centred on Jesus _now_.
It is _that_ which alone can form a peaceful pillow in a dying hour, and
enable us to rise superior to all its attendant terrors. Look at that
scene in the Jehoshaphat valley! The proto-martyr Stephen has a pillow
of thorns for his dying couch, showers of stones are hurled by
infuriated murderers on his guiltless head, yet, nevertheless, he "fell
asleep." What was the secret of that calmest of sunsets amid a
blood-stained and storm-wreathed sky? The eye of faith (if not of sight)
pierced through those clouds of darkness. Far above the courts of the
material temple at whose base he lay, he beheld, in the midst of the
general assembly and Church of the First-born of Heaven, "JESUS standing
at the right hand of God." The vision of his Lord was like a celestial
lullaby stealing from the inner sanctuary. With _Jesus_, his last sight
on earth and his next in glory, he could "lay him down in peace and
sleep," saying, in the words of the sweet singer of Israel, "What time I
awake I am still with Thee."

"It matters little at what hour o' the day
The righteous falls asleep. Death cannot come
To him untimely who is fit to die.
The less of this cold world the more of heaven;
The briefer life, the earlier immortality."--MILMAN.

"Our friend Lazarus sleepeth." This tells us that Christ forgets not the
dead. The dead often bury their dead, and remember them no more. The
name of their silent homes has passed into a proverb, "The land of
forgetfulness." But they are not forgotten by Jesus. That which sunders
and dislocates all other ties--wrenching brother from brother, sister
from sister, friend from friend--cannot sunder us from the living,
loving heart on the throne of heaven. His is a friendship and love
stronger than death, and surviving death. While the language of earth is

"Friend after friend departs--
Who hath not lost a friend?"

the emancipated spirit, as it wings its magnificent flight among the
ministering seraphim, can utter the challenge, "Who shall separate me
from the love of Christ?" The righteous are had with Him "in everlasting
remembrance." Their names "written among the living in Jerusalem;" yea,
"engraven on the palms of His hands."

One other thought.--Jesus had at first kindly and consi