be obtained? What succeeds the fatal moment, but progressive decay? And who can discover the least trace of an indication that the departed friend will resume his life? Every hour seems to widen the breach, to increase the distance that separates the dead from the living, and to complete the triumph of our mortal foe. All the powers of nature in combination would prove incompetent to produce life in the smallest particle--the most insignificant atom of dust; and hope naturally expires when animation ceases. When Christians, therefore, are required to part with their companions, or to die themselves, their only confidence must be in God; and whoever cannot receive _his_ word, and rely upon the assurances which he has given with regard to the exercise of divine power in the recovery of man from the grave, has no adequate consolation amidst the desolations that await him. Christians also must pass through the change of death, because the glory of Jesus Christ in the resurrection could not otherwise be so illustriously displayed. Never did the character of the Son of God appear with more commanding majesty than when he recalled the spirit of Lazarus from the invisible state, and at a word raised his body from the sepulchre. "Lazarus," said he, "come forth:" the summons entered the ear of death, and the "last enemy" felt himself "destroyed." The scene is infinitely cheering. Though we "fade as a leaf," dropping one by one into the tomb like the foliage of autumn; the eternal spring advances, when "they that are in the grave shall hear his voice, and shall come forth"--renewed in vigour, purified in character, perfected in felicity--to return no more to this sublunary sphere, to descend no more to the dust, to struggle no more with sin and sorrow, to be assaulted no more with the "fiery darts of the devil."