FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90  
91   92   93   94   95   96   97   >>  
trated at the bed-side of Jairus' daughter. Well did that noisy, lamenting group represent the worldly who read only the material fact, or that flippant skepticism which laughs all supernatural truth to scorn. And well did Jesus represent the spirit of his doctrine, and its transforming power, when he exclaimed, "She is not dead, but sleepeth." Yes! beautifully has Christianity transformed death. To the eye of flesh it was the final direction of our fate,--the consummate riddle in this mystery of being,--the wreck of all our hopes,-- "The simple senses crowned his head, Omega! thou art Lord, they said; We find no motion in the dead." Ever, though with higher desires and better gleamings, the mind has struggled and sunk before this fact of decay, and this awful silence of nature; while in the waning light of the soul, and among the ashes of the sepulchre, skepticism has built its dreary negation. And though the mother could lay down her child without taking hints which God gave her from every little flower that sprung on that grassy bed,--though the unexhausted intellect has reasoned that we ought to live again, and the affections, more oracular, swelling with the nature of their great source, have prophesied that we shall,--never, until the revelation of Christ descended into our souls, and illuminated all our spiritual vision, have we been able to say certainly of death, it is a sleep. This has made its outward semblance not that of cessation, but of progression--not an end, but a change--converting its rocky couch to a birth-chamber, over-casting its shadows with beams of eternal morning, while behind its cold unconsciousness the unseen spirit broods into higher life. "He fell asleep," says the sacred chronicler, speaking of bloody Stephen. "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth," said Christ to his disciples; and yet again, as here in the text, the beautiful synonyme is repeated, "She is not dead, but sleepeth." But I proceed to remark, if the Christian religion thus transforms death, or, in other words, abolishes the idea of its being annihilation, or an end, then it gives us a new view of our relations to the departed. What are these relations? The answers to this question will form the burden of the present discourse. I. There is the relation of memory. It is true, we may argue that this relation exists whether the Christian view of death be correct or not;--so long have those who are now go
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90  
91   92   93   94   95   96   97   >>  



Top keywords:

sleepeth

 

relations

 

Christian

 
Christ
 
higher
 

nature

 
relation
 

skepticism

 

represent

 

spirit


eternal
 

morning

 

shadows

 

casting

 

chamber

 
exists
 

broods

 

unconsciousness

 

revelation

 
unseen

change

 
spiritual
 

vision

 

progression

 

correct

 

descended

 

illuminated

 
asleep
 

cessation

 

outward


semblance

 

converting

 

bloody

 

abolishes

 

annihilation

 

religion

 

memory

 

transforms

 

question

 

answers


burden

 

discourse

 

present

 

departed

 

friend

 

Lazarus

 
disciples
 

Stephen

 

sacred

 

chronicler