who had died in the cause of Christ.  “The dead in Christ” cannot possibly include those who died previous to his birth, but those only who died in the faith of his doctrine previous to his coming in his kingdom.  We might reason this point at large, but deem it unnecessary till some one proves how those, who never heard of a Saviour, could be said to die in Christ, or to be dead in him.  I would, however, remark that the Greek preposition en may be rendered, on account of.  The phrase would then read thus—­the dead on account of Christ.  Wakefield renders it thus—­“they who have died in the cause of Christ.”  That this is its true sense, I have not a doubt.

Let one thing here be distinctly noticed:  Paul says—­“For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain,” &c.  Now where has our Lord ever said, when speaking of the immortal resurrection, that some would be alive, and be changed to immortal beings?  Nowhere.  This single circumstance ought to make every man pause before he asserts such a change to be true.  Read Christ’s language in all three of the Evangelists where he addresses the Sadducees; and he speaks only of the dead being raised, but not of any one being changed.  Read his language, John vi:39—­“And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but raise it up again at the last day.”  Nothing is here said about changing the living to immortal beings.  The Father has given all into the hands of his Son; and if he is to raise them up at the last day, then all must die, for the change of the living is not the resurrection of the dead.  How then could Paul tell his brethren, “by the word of the Lord,” that they were to be thus changed?  He could not because there is not a “thus saith the Lord” to support it.  But Paul had the word of the Lord support the change in the living which we have pointed out.  Christ said, “the righteous should go into life eternal,” they “that endured unto the end should be saved” that “they should shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father,” and that “they should be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.”

But, inquires the reader, were those who died in the cause of Christ raised immortal at his coming?  No, they were not.  It simply means that they were in that day to receive their elevated stations of glory and and honor in the gospel kingdom, so much so, as if they had been alive.  The living Christians, in this respect, were not to be before them.  Having suffered and died in the cause of Christ, they were in the minds of the living to “shine as the stars forever and ever” in the kingdom of Christ, because they had turned many to righteousness.  The Lord had, as it were, delayed his coming, and many had given up faith in Christ’s resurrection, and were sorrowing without hope over their friends who had fallen asleep in his cause.  They of course