Did it not range through fields of light unseen,
And welcome there the thief, who on the cross
Had prayed Thee to remember him—had been
Companion of Thy torture, shame, and loss?

And are we not in all things like to Thee,
(XOur Brother and the First-born from the dead?
Shall not our spirit-bodies likewise flee

Straight where Thou willest from the dying bed?

III. CHRIST'S SPIRIT-BODY THE TYPE OF OURS.

THE laws of human bodies still remain
Occult in part, but as experience grows
Their powers develop. What was dark is plain,
And that which science only guessed, she knows.

But how much less than little can we know
Of those strange spirit-bodies, which divide
Departed souls from all around them, so
That each by each may be identified.

Yet in the record of Thy spotless days
Before and after death, O Master dear,

The studious eye detects no fitful blaze
Of truth, but starry lights on lights appear.

Thy risen Body points to various laws;
Thy risen Body as a type we take

Till death-sleep round our life the curtain draws-
Till in Thy likeness satisfied we wake.

all these who died belove Christ
the den bel dhe did.
He

Christ's Spirit-Body.

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IV. CHRIST'S SPIRIT-BODY RECOGNISABLE.

WHATEVER beauty in His person glowed,
Whatever dignity of form and grace

Of gesture, when the Man of Sorrows trode
On thorns with purpose fixed from place to place,

That beauty, majesty, and sweetness shone
Forth from His face when He appeared again,
Set free from death, alike in look and tone,
Yet something more than man, with fellow men.
How often in their hearts the question rose,
'Is this indeed the Jesus whom we knew?
Are these His wonder-working hands? Are those
The lips whose accents list'ning myriads drew?

'Is that the bosom on which John reclined?
Are those the eyes that over Salem wept?
Is this the voice that hushed the howling wind,
And made the billows sleep as He had slept?

'It is our Cross-enthroned, our risen, Lord—
The form familiar yet divinely changed-
Transfigured on a higher mount, adored,

Yet from His brethren in nowise estranged.

'But, oh! how widely different laws preside

O'er all the movements of His wondrous frame,

Oh, into what a mystic life He died,

And altered that He might be still the same!'

V. CHRIST'S SPIRIT-BODY MYSTERIOUS.

He burst at will on His disciples' gaze,

And when He would He vanished out of sight, And often eyes were holden, lest the blaze Of too much deity should blind with light.

He passed through closed doors like viewless wind; He bore the scars and wounds of cross and nail; He ate the fish and honey like His kind,

And from the shore observed the fishers sail;

He spread His mantle on the liquid air,

And slowly rose into His regal rest;
And many problems hard to solve are there
With Him deep hidden in His awful breast.

For who can follow those mysterious ways,
Or His unearthly steps reduce to rule?
A body like to His alone can raise

Our minds to grasp them in a higher school.

VI. CHRIST'S SPIRIT-BODY: ITS, VARIOUS MODES AND ASPECTS.

THE fellow travellers of Saint Paul beheld Christ's Body panoplied in blistering light : He only heard the voice. His hate was quelled, His soul converted by the vision's might.

St. Teresa's Visions.

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And since the hour when Saul of Tarsus saw
And heard Emmanuel on the Syrian way,
How many saints have bowed their heads with awe
Before Him manifested clear as day!

Are all the histories of ardent love

And penitence sincere to which He deigned
A sunbeam of His presence from above-
Are all, all, legends, falsehoods, visions feigned?

Has He not, then, reserved in His own hands
The times and seasons when He will appear,
Impose on suppliants His beloved commands,

Or with Himself revealed their anguish cheer?

Shall He who made the widowed Church His wife

In person never take immediate part

In all that most concerns her inner life,
And never bare again His sacred heart?

Is faith so feeble that it cannot trust

To any witness less than saint inspired? As if Christ's presence in the Body must Be limited by laws of sense required.

VII. ST. TERESA'S VISIONS OF THe glorifiED BODY.

WHY doubt Teresa any more than Paul

Saw Him Who is the same to-day as then,

And knows not any lapse of time at all
Save as a weak device of mortal men?

Were all the visions of her silent cell

Delusions of a crazed and sickly brain?
Or did her gaze in fear and rapture dwell
Upon the very Lamb that had been slain?

I see not why we should reject her tale,
Or doubt she saw the Body that extends
Far as He wills its substance should avail
To bring about His gracious, glorious ends.
Clear water running o'er a crystal bed,

And smitten by a sunbeam, would be dim Compared with that soft brightness which He shed: That perfect quietude of light in Him.

Yet not with eyes of flesh did she behold
The face and hands so beautiful, the form
More bright than diamonds or burnished gold,
More fair than rainbows o'er a cataract's storm,

More lucid than the beryl, onyx, pearl,

Or stalactite dependent in a cave
Wherein the dark blue whispering waters curl,
Or coral branching 'neath the sea-green wave.

No, not to eyes of sense did He declare

His majesty and splendour. 'Twas her soul That saw Him unimaginably fair,

And from a fraction feebly guessed the whole.

And with Him ofttimes she reviewed His saints
In glittering phalanx or on golden thrones
Such as the favoured seer of Patmos paints,--

Their foreheads garlanded with costly stones.