II. Now I have given you two striking instances of zeal for God's honour, one in a man, and one in a woman. Have you any such zeal in you? Are your thoughts at all taken up with God's church, God's altar, God's worship? Are you eager that all should be beautiful and seemly in the temple of God? Does it pain you above every other pain when you know of something which is to the dishonour of God and of His Church? Have you any zeal at all like that of David? Have you any self-forgetfulness in what concerns His honour, like that of the nameless wife of Phinehas? I think if there were a little of this zeal, so many of our churches would not be untidy, neglected, ruinous. There would not be moth-eaten altar-cloths, and worm-eaten altars. There would not be green mouldering walls, and broken pavements. There would not be a service slovenly, unmusical, irreverent, or if not irreverent, at least unworthy of the glory of God. In heaven flame the golden candles, and the censers fume with frankincense. In heaven the seven lamps ever burn, and the altar shines like the sun. In heaven the angels and the saints cease not day nor night in singing praises, and bowing in worship--and we! how do we show that we love God's worship? The zeal of God's house does not eat us up, we do not even know what it is. LXVI. _THE MEETING HEREAFTER._ Funeral Service. Joshua iii. 17. "And the priests that bare the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, and all the Israelites passed over on dry ground, until all the people were passed clean over Jordan." INTRODUCTION.--That must have been a striking sight! The whole of God's people passing over Jordan. On one side, on that of the Wilderness, a crowd pressing down, and going into the deep river bed, on the other, those who had traversed, rising out of it, and spreading out on the high bank, looking down and watching those who descend into the bed, and cross through it to rejoin them. They stand in a blaze of light. The sun is setting, and the whole sky behind them is flaming with golden clouds, the light strikes in the eyes of those on the further bank, and they look down into the dark channel and shrink, it is immersed in shadow, but then again, they look up, and see the glory, and the forms of their fathers, and brothers, and mothers, and sisters, and children standing there, steeped in light, and they pluck up courage and go down. They have no cause to fear. In the midst of Jordan stands the Ark of the Covenant, and it will not move from that place till the last has passed over. SUBJECT.--That story may serve for our comfort. We, like the Israelites, are on our journey, and we have to pass through the dark bed of the stream of Death, before we can enter into the promised land. And we have two subjects of consolation. (_a_) We have the Ark of the Covenant standing in Jordan to secure the path.