iads, bought with His blood, will He debar from sharing in the
splendour of His final entrance within the celestial gates. "The Lord
Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout--with the voice of the
archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise
first. Then they who are alive and remain, shall be caught up together
with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we
ever be with the Lord."

"We must not stand to gaze too long,
Though on unfolding heaven our gaze we bend;
When lost behind the bright angelic throng,
We see Christ's entering triumph slow ascend.

"No fear but we shall soon behold,
Faster than now it fades, that gleam revive,
When issuing from his cloud of fiery gold,
Our wasted frames feel the true Sun and live.

"Then shall we see Thee as Thou art,
For ever fix'd in no unfruitful gaze,
But such as lifts the new created heart
Age after age in worthier love and praise."

XXIII.

THE DISCIPLES' RETURN.

The time has come when the disciples must leave the crest of Olivet and
bend their steps once more to Jerusalem. Ah! most sorrowful
thought--most sorrowful pilgrimage! Often, often had it been trodden
before with their Lord's voice of love and power sounding in their ears.
Often had it proved an Emmaus journey, when their hearts "burned within
them as He talked to them by the way and opened unto them the
Scriptures." But He is gone!--that voice is now hushed--the well-loved
path, worn by His blessed footsteps, and consecrated by His midnight
prayers, must be trodden by them alone! Willingly, perhaps, like Peter,
on Tabor, would they have tarried on the spot where they last saw His
human form, and listened to the music of His voice, just as we still
love to revisit some haunt of hallowed friendship and associate it with
the name and words and features of the departed. But they dare not
linger. As the disciples of this great and good Master, they dare not
remain to indulge in mere sentimental grief, or in vain hopes and
expectations of a speedy return. Life is too short--their Apostolic work
too solemn and momentous, to suffer them to consume their hours in
unavailing sorrow. We may imagine them taking their last look upwards to
heaven, and then bending a tearful eye down upon Bethany--its hallowed
remembrances all the _more_ hallowed, that the vision is now about to
pass away fo