lings, unchanged; still the same living, thinking,
active beings which they were here on earth. . . . Rest they may--rest
they will, if they need rest. But what is their rest? Not idleness, but
peace of mind. To rest from sin, from sorrow, from fear, from doubt,
from care; this is true rest. Above all, to rest from the worst
weariness of all--knowing one's duty, and not being able to do it. That
is true rest--the rest of God, who works for ever, and is at rest for
ever; as the stars over our heads move for ever, thousands of miles a
day, and yet are at perfect rest, because they move orderly,
harmoniously, fulfilling the law which God has given them. Perfect rest,
in perfect work; that surely is the rest of blessed spirits, till the
final consummation of all things, when Christ shall have made up the
number of His elect. And if it be so, what comfort for us who must die,
what comfort for us who have seen others die, if death be but a new birth
into some higher life; if all that it changes in us is our body--the mere
husk and shell of us--such a change as comes over the snake when he casts
his old skin, and comes out fresh and gay, or even the crawling
caterpillar, which breaks its prison, and spreads its wings to the sun as
a fair butterfly? Where is the sting of death then, if death can sting,
and poison, and corrupt nothing of us for which our friends love us;
nothing of us with which we could do service to men or God? Where is the
victory of the grave, if so far from the grave holding us down, it frees
us from the very thing which does hold us down--the mortal body?

_Water of Life_--_Sermons_.

Consider the lilies of the field. We must take our Lord's words exactly.
He is speaking of the lilies, the bulbous plants which spring into flower
in countless thousands every spring over the downs of Eastern lands. All
the winter they are dead, unsightly roots, hidden in the earth. But no
sooner does the sun of spring shine upon their graves, than they rise
into sudden life and beauty, as it pleases God, and every seed takes its
own peculiar body. Sown in corruption, they are raised in incorruption;
sown in weakness, they are raised in power; sown in dishonour, they are
raised in glory; delicate, beautiful in colour, perfuming the air with
fragrance; types of immortality, fit for the crowns of angels.

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. For even so is the
Resurrection of the dead. Yes, not with