are each like the rod of Aaron laid up in the ark, which “bloomed blossoms and yielded almonds.”  All else which is dear to us on earth may seem changeful, or changed; the property may have disappeared, the home may have been broken tip, the plighted faith and love may have been recalled; the whole condition of life may have been altered:  but we visit that burial spot, and there is permanence; that fast-anchored isle has defied the surges and roaring currents; the grave seems beautifully constant; it has not betrayed our confidence; it is not weary of its precious charge; it has kindly staid behind to permit and encourage our griefs when all else may have fled.  The winter’s snows have fallen, the tempests have beaten, there; and now, this April or May morning, it is as steadfast and quiet as when the slumber there began.

Great honor is paid to the dead in giving them precedence to the living at the last day.  “The dead in Christ shall rise first,” that is, before the living are changed;—­they shall rise, and after that, in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, the living will be transformed; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.  This is said in order to comfort those who mourn the death of Christian friends,—­intimating such care on the part of their Redeemer, that the apostle is directed to tell us “by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive, and remain to the coming of the Lord, shall not” have precedence of “them that are asleep.”  It is declared that the change of the living will be effected “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.”  This must be a matter of pure revelation; for it could not have been foretold, from any apparent probabilities, whether it would happen instantaneously or by degrees.  It is suited to impress the mind with the power and majesty of Christ, inasmuch as this is to be one of the great acts connected with his second coming, and as really an exercise of his omnipotence as the raising of the dead.  For he is “Lord both of the dead and of the living.”

“And the sea shall give up the dead that are in it.”  Many a form of a believer is waiting there for the redemption of the body.  Nor has it escaped the eye of the great archangel.  Wrapped in its rude shroud, or decomposed and scattered, or in whatever way seemingly annihilated, personal identity still attaches to it, and the all-seeing eye watches every thing which is essential to that identity, as easily as though the body were in the grave with kindred dust.  That the power of God in the resurrection may be fully illustrated, and that some may be preeminent witnesses in their own persons of that mighty power, perhaps it will appear that they were permitted, for that purpose, to be devoured, or to dissolve and to waste away in the sea.  If they who came out of great tribulation are arrayed in white robes among the righteous, we may look for some special sign of