pitiable death. He
has done his work and conquered. He has died like a man, whom men
honour. Even so it is well. And if he have died in the Lord, a penitent
Christian man, _he_ is not dead at all. _He_ does not lie in that grave
in a foreign land. All of him that strangers' feet can tread upon is but
what we called his body; and yet which was not even his body, but the
mere husk and shell of him, the flesh and bones with which his body was
clothed in this life; while he, he himself, is nearer God than ever, and
nearer, too, than ever to his comrades who seem to have left him, and to
the parents and the friends who are weeping for him at home. Ay, nearer
to them, more able, I firmly believe, to help and comfort them, now that
he is alive for ever, in the heaven of God, than he would if he were only
alive here on the earth of God--more able perhaps to help them now by his
prayers than he ever would have been by the labour of his hands. Be that
as it may, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, for they rest from
their labours, and their works do follow them. A fearful labour is the
soldier's, and an ugly work; and he has done it; and doubt not it has
followed him, and is recorded for him in the book of God for ever!

XVII. WHAT IS CHANCE?

"By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death
passed upon all men, because all have sinned."--ROMANS v. 12.

All death is a solemn and fearful thing. When it comes to an old person,
one cannot help feeling it often a release, and saying, "He has done his
work--he has sorrowed out his sorrows, he has struggled his last
struggle, and wept his last tear: let him go to his rest and be peaceful
at last."

But when death comes suddenly to people in the prime of life, who but
yesterday were as busy and as lively as any of us, and we are face to
face with death, and see the same face we knew in life--not wasted, not
worn, young and lusty as ever, seemingly asleep,--something at our heart
as well as in our eyes, tells us that there is more than sleep in that
strange, sharp, quiet smile--and we know in spite of ourselves that the
man is dead. And then strange questions rise in us, "Is that he whom we
knew? that still piece of clay, waiting only a few days before it returns
to its dust? It is the face of him, the shape of him, it is what we knew
him by. It is the very same body of which when we met it on the road we
said, "He is coming."