brethren in this world.  To a benevolent mind it is a great joy to think of good people, who are deprived, in this world, of education and culture, entering upon a career of boundless knowledge, rising to the highest pitch of mental development, and enjoying it all the more for their former disadvantages in their probationary state.  “And, behold, there are last which shall be first.”  Distinctions made here by knowledge will be transient, like gifts of prophecy, and tongues; for it is in this sense that it is said, “whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.”  And when we look upon those dear children of God who have long suffered under bodily deformity, and “have borne, and have had patience, and have not fainted,” we love to think of their glorified bodies, and of that rich zest in the possession of them which will be both the natural consequence, and the gracious reward, of their patience; nay, we love to think that some special, personal beauty, some peculiar grace and glory, may be given them by Him who so delights in compensatory acts in nature, in providence, and in grace.

Was it not the object of the transfiguration, in part, to give the human soul of Christ such an idea of his future glory in heaven, as to strengthen him for his agony and death?  Yes; for the heavenly visitants “spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.”  That anticipation of his glorified nature was a part of “the joy set before him.”  Let Christ on Tabor, and faith, do for us, with regard to present bodily sorrows and sufferings, that which the transfiguration did for Jesus in the days of his humiliation.  “Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.”

Through the long interval of death and the separate state, the anticipation of the last day and of the resurrection will, no doubt, be to the wicked a predominant source of terror.  While the joyful anticipations of it, in heaven, will be like the advancing steps of morning, when there begin to be signs, in the tabernacle for the sun, of that bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and of that strong man rejoicing to run a race, and every thing will be astir with the notes of preparation for that day, for which all other days were made, the approach of it will be, to the lost, a deepening gloom, its arrival the settling down of interminable night.  Instead of entering into their bodies with transport, as the righteous do, they will each be like a prisoner removed from one jail to another with new bars and bolts.  If it be not unreasonable to suppose that the appearance of the body will conform to the character, and if the bodies of Isaiah, and Paul, and John must be seraphic, to correspond with their experience and attainments, what must the bodies of the wicked be!  They will have spent centuries in sinning, and suffering, debased in every part, the