He is poor, friendless, uneducated. He desires to ascend the hill of science. He places his mark high, and then starts for its attainment. Obstacles and difficulties multiply. Patiently he removes the one and surmounts the other. He reaches the goal. The runaway apprentice stands before kings. The blacksmith becomes the learned linguist. And so in religion. Once in a while, one, influenced by the right spirit, resolves to be more than a mere professor or common Christian. He turns his back upon the world, resolves to be a devoted man, and presses towards the mark. His step is steady. His progress is sometimes slow, and yet every wind wafts him on. Even his troubles and trials are stepping stones to higher elevation. His profiting appears to all. He grows in grace. He loves God with all his heart. He walks with God, and exhibits his communings with heaven in his intercourse with men. He leaves a favorable impression upon all around him, and, dying, receives an abundant entrance into heaven. He has not lived in vain, nor has he labored for nought. He has accomplished life's greatest end, and lives near the throne at God's right hand in heaven.

THE TRANSFIGURATION.

BY REV. BISHOP ISBEL.

There is, perhaps, no passage in the evangelical history more pleasingly interesting than that which gives an account of the transfiguration of Christ. His most intimate and best-beloved disciples are chosen to be witnesses of that glorious scene as a reward for their interest in their Lord and Master. Something is now to be shown them to animate their zeal and swell their hopes. Humble as was their former occupation, they had gained no earthly elevation, or reward, by attaching themselves to the world's Savior. That at times they might fear they had exchanged a true religion for a false one, and made sacrifices in vain, is natural for us to suppose. And Christ, knowing what is in man, saw fit to prepare his disciples for their future work by answering questions, which agitated their minds, both to the eye and the heart, in a most impressive manner. Behold them alone; Christ, the world's Redeemer, the impetuous Peter, the considerate James, and the meek and beloved John, on one of the lofty elevations of the sacred land, far above the din of a corrupt and bustling world. As these disciples gazed upon their Master in his garb of humility, what thoughts and misgivings may have been gathering in their minds; when lo! his countenance becomes radiant with celestial light, and his vestments of earthly fabric blaze with heavenly splendor. Every trace of his earthly humiliation is lost amidst the brightness of his native glory. Here, then, is the teacher they have chosen, not in his assumed, but rightful garb. An important question is settled in a

most thrillingly interesting manner; they have not lost but gained immensely by their attachment to Him who is known as Jesus of Nazareth.

But if they have done gloriously, have they done right? The company increases. Two personages, invested with a glory like that which beams from the person of their Lord, appear, and enter into harmonious converse with him. They are Moses and Elijah, one the head of the sacrificial, and the other the head of the prophetic dispensation. They converse upon the great event of the world—the death of Christ. Moses had pointed to it with his typical finger, and the prophets had made it a theme of impassioned discourse and wrote its affecting history centuries before, and Christ was to be the passive actor in those scenes which they had portrayed in such striking colors. All was agreement; not a point of difference was raised between the assembled heads of the great dispensations of light to a sin-shaded world. Cheer up, then, ye followers of the Jew-hated Nazarene, for you are no apostates; but, traveling along the illuminated pathway of revelation, you are just immerging into the full beams of gospel day. But see! there comes the Shekinah; the symbol of God's presence, about which you have heard and read so much in connection with the history of your fathers! You may expect now a communication which you may not forget. Hear that voice! "This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased!" There now, you have been led, by his discourses, fraught with the treasures of wisdom, and by the wondrous miracles which he has wrought, to embrace the Messiah; Moses and Elijah have come from the realms of light, and sitting beneath the outbeamings of his glory, reverently fraternize with him; and God, drawing nigh to you in the ancient type of His glorious majesty, has spoken to you distinctly and

told you to hear him. The way of duty is clear before you, and there is no room for farther doubt.

Peter was quite beside himself, under the contemplation of the ravishing glories of his Lord and his two heavenly visitors, and it is no wonder that both he and his brother disciples were entirely overwhelmed with the awful glory of the speaking God. Emotions of fear mingled with the rapturous throbbings of their strangely excited hearts. There they lie amidst the glory that crowns the lofty solitude, made sacred by scenes such as had never transpired on earth before. It requires the familiar touch and voice of their divine Master to raise them up from under the overpowering weight of glory that rested upon them. They had been favored with a view of the splendor and majesty of their Lord, and abundant proof that he was the great Teacher, sent from God, who was to be heard. But this was not all. They were to be teachers like Moses and Elijah, and that the world would oppose them was clear. Very likely they must suffer martyrdom, and, if that does not take place, die they must, and cease to have a visible existence here. Where will then the active thinking spirit be? Shut up in the loathsome grave with the corrupt body? Be dormant? Unconscious? No! They had just seen Moses and Elijah, one of whom had died, and the other disappeared centuries ago. They, certainly, were both living, whether both in heaven, or one in heaven, and the other in paradise we may not know, but perhaps they did; at all events, they were having a conscious and glorious existence at the time of the transfiguration.

Here was something to cheer and animate the disciples in their subsequent struggles with the hosts of hell. And Peter did remember "the excellent glory" in the mount, and the voice that spake to them from it when

he was sturdily doing battle under the eye of "the chief shepherd." He could well afford to die in the contest, as it was only exchanging an existence of less glory, for one of unspeakable splendor. It is true, the body must sojourn in the realms of corruption and dishonor for a season, yet the triumphs of death are comparatively short. The disciples saw this on the mount of transfiguration. They were made to understand, undoubtedly, that the transfigured body of Christ, was a full representation of the glorified body of man after the resurrection. It is very probable that they saw a complete parallel between the bodies of Christ and Elijah, and perhaps between those of Moses and Christ. Whether the body of Moses, which could not be found, was raised and taken to heaven, is what the scriptures do not tell us, and hence we can not know with certainty. But proof enough was given, in connection with the transfiguration of Christ, of the glory of the resurrection body to satisfy them that though their bodies might be "sown in corruption," they would be "raised in incorruption," if "sown in dishonor," they would be "raised in glory." Hence, with this precious remembrance ever cheering their hopes, they counted not their lives dear unto them, while bearing forward the standard of the cross of Christ. They could well afford to lay down their lives in a good cause, if such a glorious life of body and spirit awaited them beyond the scene of strife.

Such, we apprehend, were some of the lessons taught by the scenes of the transfiguration to the disciples, and, through them, to the world.