What a true pastor he was! what a faithful friend! what a saintly servant! what a large-hearted man! Which of us but has had proof, nay, countless proofs of his loving-kindness? Which of us could ever have succeeded, even if we had wished, in making that man our enemy? Oh! brethren, tears may well be in our hearts to-day—well may we weep for ourselves and for our children, weep because he is gone, weep because not one of us appreciated him enough, prayed for him enough, loved him enough, while he was still here. Oh! but he was a pastor who pressed his dear people to his heart, and then bore them up on that large heart of his before his divine Master,—every one of us, and our needs were continually in his mind. And now the Master has need of _him_, and has come and called him away; and, after a short and comparatively easy passage, he has forded the river, and gone up the shining path, and we stand alone and cry, “My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof,” and we see him no more. And yet he would not have us silent to-day. He would bid us encourage ourselves, encourage one another in the Lord. He would exhort us to preach the Word. He would remind us that the time is short, and beseech us to buy up the opportunity. Let us do it, checking our tears. Did not we hear only yesterday that word of Christ, “Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die”? Is there then loss to-day of any man’s _life_ amongst us, or only of the ship? “Not lost, but gone before,” is that life, if the word of Christ be true. Our pastor “is not dead, but sleepeth.” The ship is broken by the violence of the waves, but all the _life_ is “safe to land.” The casket is shattered, but the precious jewel is in the hand, nay, in the very bosom of the Saviour. “He is not dead, but sleepeth.” _Dead_ four days? Nay, but _alive_, with a life far brighter and keener and more joyous than he ever had on earth! He sleeps well, and presently the Lord of life will say, “I go that I may awake him out of sleep.” And how near that day-dawn, that awaking time may be, the morning of the resurrection, when the dead in Christ shall rise first. Meanwhile, the voice that speaks to us from that farther shore, aye, and will speak “till thought and memory flee”—that voice saith in death, when it cannot be silent, what it would have hesitated in its humility to say in life: “Be ye followers of me, even as I am of Christ.” And so we call upon the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of the Living God and of Jesus, and offer this prayer— “Refining fire, go through my heart, Illuminate my soul; Scatter Thy life through every part, And sanctify the whole. “My steadfast soul from falling free, Shall then no longer move, And Christ be all in all to me, And all my heart be love.”