the unlettered, which is so readily understood by the anatomist. We must and will expose, if we can, that which has led the scientific to propose a difficulty in the doctrine of the resurrection. Let enlightened readers then bear with us, whilst we explain things well known to them, for the sake of the uncultivated. The inferences will be of equal importance to all. The application is profitable to each one of us.

Let the following facts be noted and impressed on the memory:

First fact, God tells the righteous that their bodies, although made out of the materials belonging to their present frames of earth, will shine and be very splendid! (See xv. Chapter 1 Cor.) God can make very durable, and very glorious things out of materials the very oppo. site of firmness, or of brilliancy. He has done this. Of all the substances with which we are acquainted, we esteem diamond the hardest, and the most glittering. Charcoal is as black and as crumbling, as any other body known to us; yet, these two bodies are the same! The learned know, the ploughboy does not, that the difference between charcoal and diamond is, that the Creator has ordered a different arrangement of particles! The same materials are differently placed, that is all. If any are wishing for a body more beautiful than they now have, they may be assured that God can, if he chooses, take a part of our present fragile, corruptible forms of clay, and make out of it something exceedingly glorious. "It is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory. Out of a certain spot of earth a flower arose, which waved in splendour; the soil from which it grew was very black.

Second fact,-God has not told us how much of our

present body goes into the composition of the new, on the morning of the resurrection.

The figure used as an illustration by the inspired writer, to make his instructions plain on this subject, is the grain which is sown in the earth, decays, and out of which springs the new grain. It is perhaps a twentieth, or thirtieth part of a grain of wheat, which springs up and forms a part of the new grain; the rest rots and stays in the ground. It is not needed in the new body which God gives the wheat, and is not called forth again. Whether it will be a tenth, a twentieth, or an hundredth part of our present body, which is to enter into the formation of the new, God has not chosen to tell us, and we need not care, for the work will be well done, and we shall know enough after a time.

Third fact, The man who has lived here seventy years, has had very many bodies: perhaps less, perhaps more than seventy. God has not condescended to tell us out of which of these bodies he will take the new, or whether a portion of each will be used.

Here let the young reader be very careful to note and remember, the body he has now is not the same body he had last year. Our bodies change continually. The man who is kept from food, in any way, no longer than one week, finds, at the end of that time, he has not as much body by many pounds, as he had seven days before. In this way, how fast the body wastes, is not yet accurately agreed on. Our food is only supplying this continued waste. The bones change also, but not so fast as the softer parts of our frames. How the body can waste, and be again renewed, is singular and interesting; but not easily understood without close thinking. It will be worth while to take some pains, and

drop anatomical style, or physiological style, and speak in a way to be understood by all. The young reader may be led to admire the wonderful works of God, whilst preparing to comprehend a fact connected with his own resurrection. Every little boy knows what a vein is. He is also capable of understanding what is meant by a vein forking, or branching again and again, until it becomes exceedingly small, like those he has seen running over the eye when it is inflamed. Then again, he can fancy that if one of these small veins shall divide into a thousand branches, in running a short distance, they must become so small that they cannot be seen by the eye alone. And if thousands of these branch a thou. sand times, they will lay over each other finer and more plentifully than the hair of the head. These small veins physicians call, vessels, blood vessels. Running through, and along with these, are other vessels, as small and as numerous, that are not called blood vessels. If we place a small pebble in a leathern tube, and contract our fingers behind the pebble, we may push it from one end of the tube to the other. In this way, and through these countless millions of vessels, our food is conducted to every part of the body where it is needed. We call that which is so much smaller than a dust of flour that we cannot see it, a particle. When any of the body, which we now have, shall have remained long enough where it is, so as to become too old, and need changing, it is taken up by particles into these hair-like vessels; the vessel contracts behind the particle and pushes it on to the skin, and much of the body is lost in one day by what is called insensible perspiration. Others of these vessels lead in a different direction, and taking up particle after par. ticle of the old body, it is thrown upon the bowels, and

so passes off. But where these particles are taken from there is left a vacancy of course, and if not supplied, the man is said to be falling away, or declining in flesh. Our food, day after day, is taken into the stomach, there prepared, taken up in particles by these small vessels, conducted to every part of the body and deposited in these vacancies! Thus we think that any one can understand the necessity of daily food, and the wonderful process by which our sinking flesh is constantly sustained. But the inquiring mind sometimes demands, "If my body is thus totally changed, and so often, how is it that I look as I formerly did, or retain my shape in any way?" Answer. This you shall understand if you are willing to think industriously. Take a plate and cover it over with apples. On the top of this first layer of apples place a second, and on these a third, and so continue; after a time you will have a pyramid, and one to crown the top alone. Then suppose one man approaches the plate, takes up an apple and throws it to a distance. Another man by, immediately drops another apple as large into its place, your pyramid is still there and retains its shape. The first man takes up apple after apple in swift succession, casting them to a distance, whilst the second man drops an apple into each vacuum as fast as they are made; your plate of apples may be changed a thousand times, and the pyramid is still there in full shape. Thus your body is changed and renewed by particles. The shape remains, although there is nothing about you (soul excepted) which was there in former years. It is a man's immortal part which constitutes his real identity. Blessed be God, the soul does not waste, and glory to his name, the body

does

; thus leading us to remember our dependance on our heavenly Father.

Fourth fact.—We never had a body, a part of which did not come from every corner in the world. The rice of which that man is partaking grew in Georgia or the East Indies. That waterfowl once swam on the surface of a northern lake. That sugar came from Jamaica, and that fish once floated on the Newfoundland surges. Young reader, do you expect to live a few months longer? If you do, you must have a new body, and where is it to come from? It is probable that you will eat bread ; but the wheat from which this is to be made is now growing in your father's field, or in that of a neighbour. How is the growth of this wheat to be continued? Plants are sustained and nourished much from the air that floats past them; it enters into the pores, the leaves drink it up, and it forms a part of their substance. But the air of the earth is always changing and streaming in torrents from one part of the earth to the other. This incessant motion is necessary to preserve its purity. The air which is to help to sustain that grain on which you are to feed is not near it now; it is on the other side of the earth! Vegetation is fed by the showers of heaven. Water forms a part of the wheat, an indispensable portion. But that water is not over the field now. The clouds come from a distance. The process of evaporation will proceed on the surface of distant oceans, if the atmosphere is made heavy with the showers that nourish that which is to nourish you. You never partook of any food part of which had not been collected from distant lands and oceans all over the earth!

Application. Here is a man who is acquainted