A holy life is a powerful argument for the "truth as it is in Jesus;" and that suspicious eagerness with which the wicked watch the conduct of professors, that patient malignity with which they wait for their halting, and that Satanic joy with which they exult over their misconduct, prove their own convictions of the strength of such an argument. Let us then be concerned to falsify their predictions and disappoint their enmity by "walking in _all_ the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless." Consider the impressive appeal of the apostle: "Only let your conversation be as becometh the gospel of Christ." Shine, ye professing Christians, for "ye are the lights of the world"--shine with a holy and steady radiance in the church of God, and pray for daily supplies of the oil of grace, that your light may not degenerate into a feeble glimmering or totally expire; otherwise you may become accessary to the fall and ruin of others, and "their blood may be upon _you!_" Such a pious union, such holy friendship as that of Elizabeth and Zacharias, will be _perpetuated through infinite ages_. It is not a transient but an everlasting union; it shall survive the grave and defy the stroke of mortality. They who "sleep in Jesus" will God bring with him. The sepulchre, to such as die in the faith of Christ and in a state of holy friendship with each other, only resembles a vast prison, in which dearest friends are separated only for a time in different cells, and from which they shall be released when the gloomy keeper resigns his keys, when "death is swallowed up in victory." Those humble and affectionate disciples who have "walked together in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, here, shall take sweet counsel above, and walk together in the fields of immortality." In a nobler sense than the original application of the words, it may be said of all Christian friends, "they were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their deaths they were not divided." This perpetuation of Christian society and love, is intimated in the most striking manner by our Redeemer when on the point of departure from his disciples, whom he called his "_friends_." "I will not henceforth drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom." Who can describe the joys of that "marriage-feast," the felicities of that endeared spiritual and eternal intercourse, that union of hearts, that concourse of affections, that flow and mingling of souls! These are some of "the mysteries of godliness"--this is what "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive."