“_He fell on sleep_”—not, he died. “He that believeth on me, says Christ, shall never die.” He becomes absent from the body, and is present with the Lord; but this is not dying. It is not death, to close our eyes on earth, and open them in heaven; to lose the embrace of earthly friendship, and fall into the arms of Christ. This is not death; nor is it even sleep, so far as the spirit of the Christian servant is concerned. The spirit becomes absent from the body, and present with the Lord. It goes out of its tabernacle of clay, into the house which is not made with hands, eternal in the heavens; and there it joins the spirits of just men made perfect, in the general assembly and church of the first-born. But the body sleeps, and sleeps in Jesus, who redeemed it with his precious blood; who made it a temple for the Holy Ghost to dwell in; who will watch over its precious dust while it remains in the grave, “waiting there for the adoption, to wit the redemption of the body;” and who, when that morning of adoption dawns, will “come to wake it out of sleep, and to fashion it like unto his own glorious body;” “for this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.” “_And was laid unto his fathers_.” The phrase in the Old Testament is, “He was gathered to his people.” So far as it may refer to the body, it alludes to the gathering in the grave; but even in the earliest times, when the phrase was used, it looked beyond the grave, to the people whom God had begun to gather round his throne. And from the days of the patriarchs to our own, the God of all grace has been still increasing the number, and gathering his saints together, “who have made a covenant with him by sacrifice.” And when the spirit of our departed friend entered the mansions of his Father’s house, to what a numerous and a glorious company was he gathered, of those who had gone before, in ancient and in modern times. And while it is to Christ, that the gathering of the people shall be, and while he will be to them, throughout eternity, their joy, and glory, and heaven, yet blessed and celestial will be the recognitions and the remembrances, when the newly arrived guest is introduced to his former companions and coadjutors. What heart can conceive of the heavenly joy with which our departed brother, on his arrival there, met with those eminent and holy men, with whom, when on earth, he had taken sweet counsel, in works of faith and labours of love. What tongue can tell the greetings with which he was welcomed to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, when he sat down with Patriarchs, and Prophets, and Apostles, and Martyrs—with Wilberforce, and Simeon, and Buxton, and the glorious company of the Redeemed, in the presence of Christ the Master of the feast! Oh! to be thus gathered to the general assembly and church of the first-born, in that land of light and immortality, where there is no shade to dim its brightness; no sin to