e difficulties connected
with a grave than with a grape vine. Those distant twigs, on that dry
vine, begin to bud and blossom; grapes form upon them; it is filled with
clusters. Is there any thing in the resurrection more strange than this?
Twice, inspiration says to a man, "Thou fool!"--once, to a godless, rich
man, and, once, to him who is sceptical about the resurrection of the
body.

When the glorified spirit and the glorified body meet, the moment when
the investiture of the soul with its spiritual form takes place, and the
forcible divorce of the soul and body is terminated by new, strange
nuptials, there must be an experience which now defies all power of
imagination. We may have known, in this world, all the thrilling
experiences of which our natures here are capable; we shall also have
seen and felt what it is to awake in heaven, satisfied with Christ's
likeness; and all the new-born joys of heavenly sensations will have
seemed to leave us nothing to be experienced which can bring a new
rapture to the heart; yet when the body is raised, and the triumphant
spirit comes to put it on afresh, it will be an addition to all the past
joys of the heavenly state. As we look on one another, and see, in each
other's beauty and glory, an image of our own; as we remember how we
visited the graves of loved ones, and what thoughts and feelings we had
there, and then see those graves yielding forms like Christ's; as we see
the Saviour's person mirrored in ours on every side, and behold the
living changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, there will be an
exceeding great joy, such, perhaps, as the universe had never before
known. But to each of us the most perfect joy will be his own
consciousness, existence being then a rapture such as we never
experienced. Then the bird is winged, the jewel is set in gold, the
flower blooms, the harp receives all her strings, the heir is crowned.
No wonder that Paul said, looking through and beyond heaven, "If by any
means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead."

Perhaps we now think of the last day with dread, as a day of
consternation. It is not always that we can think of the heavens on
fire, the earth dissolved, the dead arising, and the judgment
proceeding, without some feeling of dismay. But in heaven, we shall long
have anticipated that day as the day of our complete triumph. The grave
will, till that time, have imprisoned one part of our nature. The curse
of the la