hich he returned, and to which he said his disciples shall be
gathered. He says nothing about the occupations of those who dwell
there. He satisfies no human yearnings to know the nature of
friendship after death. We are likely to turn away from our quest for
definite knowledge, feeling that even Jesus has told us nothing. Yet
he has told us a great deal.

There is one wonderful revelation of which perhaps too little has been
made. After Jesus had died, and lain in the grave for three days, he
rose again, and remained for forty days upon the earth. During that
time he did not resume the old relations. He was not with his
disciples as he had been during the three years of his public ministry,
journeying with them, speaking to them, working miracles; yet he showed
himself to them a number of times.

The remarkable thing in these appearances of Jesus during the forty
days is that we see in him one beyond death. Lazarus was brought back
to earth after having died, but it was only the old life to which he
returned. The human relations between him and his sisters and friends
were restored, but probably they were not different from what they had
been in the past. Lazarus was the same mortal being as before, with
human frailties and infirmities.

Jesus, however, after his return from the grave, was a man beyond
death. He was the same person who had lived and died, and yet he was
changed. He appeared and disappeared at will. He entered rooms
through closed and barred doors. At last his body ascended from the
earth, and passed up to heaven, subject no longer to the laws of
gravitation. We see in Jesus, therefore, during the forty days, one
who has passed into what we call the other life. What he was then his
people will be when they have emerged from death with their spiritual
bodies, for he was the first-fruits of them that are asleep.

As we study Jesus in the story of those days, we are surprised to see
how little he was changed. Death had left no strange marks upon him.
Nothing beautiful in his life had been lost in the grave. He came back
from the shadows as human as he was before he entered the valley.
Dying had robbed him of no human tenderness, no gentle grace of
disposition, no charm of manner. As we watch him in his intercourse
with his disciples, we recognize the familiar traits which belonged to
his personality during the three years of his active ministry.

We may rightly infer that in our new