heir
hearts--watching the slow progress of their own decay, and yet so far
emancipated from personal anxiety that they are still able to think
and to plan for others, not knowing that they are doing any great
thing. They die, and the world hears nothing of them; and yet theirs
was the completest victory. They came to the battle field, the field
to which they had been looking forward all their lives, and the enemy
was not to be found. There was no Foe to fight with.

The last form in which a Christian gets the victory over death is by
means of his resurrection. It seems to have been this which was
chiefly alluded to by the Apostle here; for he says, "when this
corruptible shall have put on incorruption ... _then_ shall come to
pass the saying which is written, Death is swallowed up in victory."
And to say the truth, brethren, it is a rhetorical expression rather
than a sober truth when we call anything, except the resurrection,
victory over death. We may conquer doubt and fear when we are dying,
but that is not conquering death. It is like a warrior crushed to
death by a superior antagonist refusing to yield a groan, and bearing
the glance of defiance to the last. You feel that he is an
unconquerable spirit, but he is not the conqueror. And when you see
flesh melting away, and mental power becoming infantine in its
feebleness, and lips scarcely able to articulate, is there left one
moment a doubt upon the mind, as to _who_ is the conqueror in spite of
all the unshaken fortitude there may be? The victory is on the side of
Death, not on the side of the dying.

And my brethren, if we would enter into the full feeling of triumph
contained in this verse, we must just try to bear in mind what this
world would be without the thought of a resurrection. If we could
conceive an unselfish man looking upon this world of desolation with
that infinite compassion which all the brave and good feel, what
conception could he have but that of defeat, and failure, and
sadness--the sons of man mounting into a bright existence, and one
after another falling back into darkness and nothingness, like
soldiers trying to mount an impracticable breach, and falling back
crushed and mangled into the ditch before the bayonets and the
rattling fire of their conquerors. Misery and guilt, look which way
you will, till the heart gets sick with looking at it.

Brethren, until a man looks on evil till it seems to him