It was the deed of One who delights in Life and not
in Death; in bliss and not in woe; in light and not in darkness; in order
and not in anarchy; in good and not in evil. It had a final cause, a
meaning, a purpose; and that purpose is very good. What it is, we know
not; and we need not know. To guess at it would be indeed to meddle with
matters too high for us. So let us be dumb. Dumb, not from despair, but
from faith; dumb, not like a wretch weary with calling for help which
does not come, but dumb like a child sitting at its mother's feet, and
looking up into her face and watching her doings, understanding none of
them as yet, but certain that they are all done in love.

_Westminster Sermons_.

Christ is risen! What a thought was that for the blessed martyrs, for
poor creatures in the agony of fear and shame, expecting presently to be
torn to pieces or burnt alive. "Death, this horrible death, cannot
conquer me, weak and fearful as I am, for my Lord and Master, for whom I
am going to suffer, has conquered death, and He will not let it conquer
me. He is stronger than hell and death, and He will not suffer me in my
last hour, for any pains of death, to fall from Him. He is King of
Heaven and Earth, and He will care for His own." What comfort to be able
to say: "Ay, I am torn from wife and child and all which I love on earth;
but not for ever, not for ever; for Christ rose from the dead, and I, who
belong to Christ, shall rise as He did. This poor flesh of mine may be
burnt in flames, devoured by ravenous beasts. What matter? Christ the
King of men has risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them
that slept. That same Spirit which brought back His body from the grave
and hell, will bring my body also from the grave and hell, to a nobler,
happier life with Him in joy unspeakable, where Christ now sits on God's
right hand defending me, pitying me, and blessing me, holding out to me a
crown of glory which shall never fade away."

_National Sermons_.

These things are most bitter, {147} and the only comfort that I can see
in them is, that they are bringing us all face to face with the realities
of human life, as it has been in all ages, and giving us sterner and yet
more loving, more human, and more divine thoughts about ourselves, and
our business here, and the fate of those who are gone, and awakening us
out of the luxurious, frivolous, unreal dream (full, nevertheless, of
hard judgments) in w