tell us even more than Mary Magdalene told them; for she had not been allowed to touch him.  We may well trust their testimony, as they trusted hers, being quite ready indeed to believe that he was alive, because they had found that he was not amongst the dead.  And so we, finding that he is not amongst the dead, seeing and knowing the fruits of his gospel, the living and ever increasing fruits of it, may well believe that its author is risen, and that the pains of death were loosed from off him, because it was not possible that he should be holden by them.

In this way, we, like the two disciples, may be all said to be witnesses of Christ’s resurrection.  May it not be said still more of those amongst us who assembled this morning round Christ’s table, to keep alive the memory of his death; when we partook of that bread, and drank of that cup, of which so many thousands and millions, in every age and in every land, have eaten and drunken, all receiving them, with nearly the same words,—­the body that was given for us, the blood that was shed for us,—­all, making allowances for human weakness, finding in that communion the peace and the strength of God; all alike receiving it with penitent hearts, and with faith, and purposes of good for the time to come?  Did we not then witness that Christ is not perished? that he has been ever, and still is, mighty to save?  That command given to twelve persons, in an obscure chamber in Jerusalem, by one who, the next day, was to die as a malefactor, has been, and is obeyed from one end of the world to another; and wherever it has been obeyed, there, in proportion to the sincerity of the obedience, has been the fulness of the blessing.

But this is now past, as with the two disciples, and we are going again to our own homes.  There, neither the empty sepulchre nor the risen Saviour are present before us, but common scenes and familiar occupations, which, in themselves have nothing in them of Christ.  So it must be; we cannot be always within these walls; we cannot always be engaged in public prayer; we cannot always be hearing Christ’s word, nor partaking of his communion; we must be going about our several works, and must be busied in them; some of us in preparation for other work to come, others to go on till the end of their lives with this only.  May we not hope that Christ, and Christ’s Spirit, will visit us the while in these our daily callings, as he came to his disciples Peter and John, when following their business as fishers on the lake of Gennesareth?

How can we get him to visit us?  There is one answer—­by prayer and by watchfulness.  By prayer, whether we are in our preparatory state, or our fixed one; by prayer, and I think I may add, by praying in our own words.  Of course, when we pray together, some of us must join in the words of others; and it makes little difference, whether those words be spoken or read.  But when we pray alone, some, perhaps, may still use none but prayers