The Risen Redeemer
The great sacrifice had been offered. The Son of God had exclaimed, “It is finished,” and had given up the ghost. Availing themselves of Pilate’s permission, Joseph and Nicodemus had toktu down the body of Jeans, and had deposited it in a tomb lately hewn out of the rock in Joseph’s garden. It was the eve of the Sabbath, and the stars would soon be shining, after which no work could be done. Their arrangements were therefore hasty; but they took time to wrap round the precious remains a hundred pounds of spices, and then rolled a great stone to the door. The Jewish rulers suggested to Pilate, that perhaps the disciples might come and carry off the body; and to obviate this danger the stone was fastened with seals, and a Roman guard set over it.
That night passed on, and nothing transpired. The next day was hushed and holy — the most sacred of Israel’s Sabbaths; and within and around the sepulchre all continued as calm and silent as the smokeless city. The Sabbath day passed over, and soon after six at night certain women purchased some spices, and agreed to meet at the sepulchre early on the following morning. Joanna and some others were to prepare the perfumes; hut before Joanna and her companions arrived, Mary the mother of James, and Mary Magdalene, and Salome, set out to explore the sepulchre. Probably they knew nothing of the guard, but they wished to know whether it were practicable to remove the great stone. But before they could arrive, there had been a mighty movement at the sepulchre. u There was a great earthquake; for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow, and for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men.” As soon as they recovered from theii consternation, the guard ran to the rulers; and in the meanwhile the female disciples drew near to the garden. As soon as they entered it, and whilst they were speculating how the stone might be moved away, to their consternation they perceived that it was already displaced, and the sepulchre was open. Instantly conjecturing that His enemies had removed the body, perhaps to insult and maltreat it, Mary Magdalene hasted off to give the alarm to Peter and John. Meanwhile, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, went forward and saw an angel in the form of a young man, sitting on the right side of the tomb, who said to them, “Be not affrighted. Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen. He is not here. Behold the place where they laid him,” “And go quickly and tell his disciples that lie is risen from the dead, and that he goeth before you into Galilee.”
On hearing Magdalene’s report, John and Peter instantly set out, and Magdalene along with them; but owing to their different routes they did not meet Salome and her companion returning. John outran Peter, and first reached the sepulchre: but whilst he was looking in Peter came up, and, with characteristic impetuosity, sprang in at once. There lay the napkin carefully folded, and the shroud disposed by itself; and it did not at all appear as if either friends or foes had hastily borne away the body. Peter and John went back to their own home, and Mary Magdalene was left alone in the garden. And thus left alone, she drew near, and with tears in her eyes looked into the sepulchre. There two angels were sitting — the one at the head, the other at the feet — where the body of Jesus had lain. She took them for two young men, and when they asked, u Woman, why weepest thou?” she answered, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.” Just then, turning round, a figure stood before her. Her eyes dim with weeping, she supposed it was the gardener, and encouraged by the kind way he asked, H Why weepest thou? whom seek est thou?” she said, “Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.” But instantly, in tones which belonged to one voice only, the Stranger answered, u Mary! “and as she sank at His feet, He added, u Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God.” And before more words could pass, He disappeared and met Salome and the other Mary, and accosted them, 11 All hail; “and clasping His feet they worshipped Him, whilst He renewed the message of the angels, “Be not afraid: Go tell my brethren that they go ‘into Galilee: there shall they see me.”
That same morning He appeared to Peter, and in the afternoon, when two disciples — not apostles — were journeying to a town eight miles from Jerusalem, Jesus joined them. They were talking together, and as it was plain that their theme was a sad one, the Stranger asked what it was. They told Him that they had counted on Jesus of Nazareth as the Redeemer of Israel, — but that He had been slain three days ago: moreover, that to-day they had been greatly perplexed by a rumour that His tomb was empty, and that no one was there except angels, who said that He was alive again. A long discourse ensued, during which the Stranger demonstrated out of the prophets that all this was the plan of God, and that these were precisely the sufferings through which Messiah should pass before He entered His glory. Whether it were that His attire or His aspect was somewhat different from what it used to be; or whether the melancholyabsorption of their thoughts prevented them from sufficiently noticing their new companion; or whether — as seems hinted in the narrative — Jesus purposely held their eyes from recognising Him: — still they journeyed mile after mile, conscious only of their fellow-traveller’s sanctity and marvellous insight to Scripture, till they reached their dwelling, and as He blessed their meal and broke the bread, their eyes were opened, and they knew Him: but before they could follow up the transporting discovery, He had “ceased to be seen of them”* — He had vanished out of their sight. With news so surprising they sped all the sixty furlongs back to Jerusalem and told the Eleven, “The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared unto Simon, and to us.” That evening, as the Eleven were assembled in an upper room, with the doors securely fastened for fear of the Jews, Jesus stood in the midst and said, u Peace be unto you: “— but they shrieked out and held up their hands, as if in the presence of an apparition. But Jesus said,” WThy are ye troubled? Behold my hands and my feet that
IfyavTOf iyivtro air avriav, Luke xxiv. 3E it is I myself. Handle me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have.” And while they yet believed not for joy, He asked, “Have ye here any meat?” and when they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish, and of a honeycomb, He took it and did eat before them. He then reminded them — as He truly might — how often He had foretold His sufferings Himself, and how Messiah’s temporary death had been predicted in the Prophets and the Psalms: “Thus it behoved Messiah to suffer, and to rise from the dead on the third day.”
A week passed on before He was seen again. On the last occasion one apostle was absent; and though his brethren told him what a long and ample interview they had enjoyed with their risen Master, he sturdily refused to believe them. After all, it must have been an apparition, and “except I shall see in his hands the prints of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.” Next Sunday the apostles were met as before, with bolted doors, and this time Thomas was with them. Again Jesus stood in the midst, and after the salutation, “Peace be unto you,” turning to Thomas, He said, “Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and Le not faithless, but believing.” But yielding to the irresistible evidence, and overwhelmed with this token of the iusen kedeemer. 301
his heart-searching Master’s omniscience, Thomas could only exclaim, “My Lord, and my God.”
Most likely it was that same week that the apostles went into Galilee, as they had been directed to do; and here they probably had repeated interviews with their Master, and learned from His own lips many things concerning His kingdom. But only two of these Galilean interviews are recorded. The first was by the Lake of Gennesareth, early on a morning of that wonderful spring. Peter, and Thomas, and James, and John, and Nathanael the guileless, and two other disciples, were in a fishing craft. They had been very unsuccessful — for they had toiled all night and taken nothing. They were now nearing the shore, when they saw some one standing on the beach. He hailed them, and asked if they had any food. They answered, None. He bade them cast the net on the right side of the ship; which they had no sooner done, than they found it so full that they could not hoist it on board. With his own sure instinct, John said t<» Peter, “It is the Lord;” and no sooner was the truth suggested, than Peter plunged over the vessel’s side, and swam the two hundred cubits to the shore. There they found a repast prepared, and there, as they had often done of old, on the margin of that same lake, these seven listened to the Master’s words, as they brake their bread together. The other appearance in Galilee was on a mountain, perhaps
Tabor, perhaps the Mount of Beatitudes; at all events, a mountain where He had appointed to meet the eleven, and where, taking advantage of the appointment, five hundred brethren came together to see Him, of whom the greater part survived full twenty years, and were living when Paul wrote his first letter to the Church of Corinth. In that interview — most likely in private, and apart from the multitude — Jesus told His apostles that all power was given to Him in heaven and earth, and He bade them go and teach all nations whatsoever things He had commanded them, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and He added, u Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” From Galilee the apostles were directed to return to Jerusalem. There, forty days after His resurrection, Jesus joined them, and led them out a favourite and familiar walk over the shoulder of Olivet as far as to Bethany. They crossed the brook Kedron; for the last time together they passed near Gethsemane; they came in sight of the house where Lazarus dwelt with his sisters Martha and Mary. But to all the incidents of that touching past, Jesus made no allusion. His discourse was of such great themes, as the coming of the Holy Spirit and the extension of God’s kingdom in the earth. An inquiry, as to whether He meant now to restore the Jewish monarchy, He discouraged; but bade the disciples preach repentance and remission of sins to all nations. And as they, doubtless, felt their deplorable incompetency, He bade them tarry at Jerusalem till they received the promise of the Father; for “not many days hence ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost.” And then — a last look of love, and a final blessing, and He was ascending from their midst; and anon, when the cloud had received Him, and the angels told them that no gaze of fondness could make Him visible again, they poured forth their adoration in an act of worship; and, slowly wending back to Jerusalem, and to that dear upper chamber, they began the life of faith, and sought to realise the promise, “Lo, I am with you alway.”
On the wonderful sequel we cannot dwell. We must not now stay to relate how a few weeks converted into heroes and orators the ignorant boors and aimless fishermen of Galilee; and how, from the dim, cold cavern of Jewish sectarianism, they suddenly issued on the world the most original reformers, the most expansive philanthropists, the most fervent evangelists, which that world has ever seen; how, in the very streets where their Master had been slain not two months previously, they proclaimed His resurrection and His Messiahship; and the rulers beat them, and threatened them, but could not contradict their testimony, nor ventured to bring forward the Roman guards to confute them; how they confirmed their avowal of Christ’s resurrection, by submitting to tortures, and imprisonments, and fearful forms of death; and how God also confirmed their testimony; how, when they invoked the name of Jesus of Nazareth, lame men leaped up, and sick folk were healed; and how, in their great business of preaching a risen Christ, the Holy Spirit helped them, so that, whilst all the languages of earth became easy as their own vernacular, their thoughts glowed like lightning, and their words thawed like fire; how the first time they announced their great news, “Him whom with wicked hands ye crucified and slew, God hath raised up, and hath made Him Lord and Christ,” the incidents all were recent, the immediate scene was only a few hundred paces distant, and their hearers had many of them been spectators of the crucifixion, but three thousand at once became the converts of the Crucified; and all throughout, till, on the road to Damascus, Jesus arrested His greatest persecutor, and changed him into His most ardent devotee, how all the intervening incidents proclaimed a risen and enthroned Redeemer, we must not at present detail more fully; but shall conclude by indicating some of the results which follow from Christ’s Resurrection.
1. It was as our Surety that Jesus died and was buried; and it was as our Surety that Jesus rose. His resurrection proves that His atoning work had served its purpose, and that the great Redemption was complete. The wages of sin was death. On behalf of His people, Jesus had tasted death; and now, as there was nothing more to pay, the prison was opened and the Surety was released. “God raised Him from the dead,” and in thus raising to life the Substitute of the elect, God openly acknowledged that their debt was discharged — their penalty exhausted — their expiation complete. It might have been otherwise. We speak of things that are strong: There is nothing stronger than justice. We speak of things that are heavy: There is nothing heavier than guilt. And had Jesus been a human Saviour, He would have been crushed by the responsibilities He assumed, and must have perished in His benevolent undertaking. The sins of any one of us would have been a gravestone too heavy for Him to heave off: the claims of Jehovah’s justice would have been bands of death too strong for even llim to burst. But before He descended to the tomb Messiah had finished trans-
-ion and made an end of sin. There was nothing to take llim thither, except the Scripture which must be fulfilled, and the last enemy which must be
toyed; and except the great stone and the pontifical seals, there was nothing to keep llim there. Vainly did the King of Terrors watch over his strange captive, and vainly did the Grave boast of its mysterious and mighty inmate, lie opened His eyes and
Death was abolished: He stood up, and the Grave had lost its victory; and yielding to the touch of Heaven’s herald, the seals and the great stone gave way, and Jesus was “declared the Son of God with power in His resurrection from the dead.” Delivered for our offences, He was raised again for our justification: and along with Him rose all His ransomed — that glorious Church of countless members which left the grave of Jesus acquitted, accepted, legally justified, virtually saved. “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.”
2. Christ rose as a precursor or earnest. Christ is risen the first-fruits of them that sleep. All shall rise. “All that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and shall come forth, they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation.” But whilst all the dead are the subjects of the Mediator’s authority, and all are destined to hear His voice, there is a special relation betwixt Himself and His believing people which identifies their lot with their risen Redeemer. Because He lives, they shall live also. Nay, believing in Him they never die. From the great life-fountain, the
Mediator’s person, their souls have imbibed immortality, and their union with Christ secures them an eventual share in Christ’s own Resurrection. All that are in their graves shall hear Christ’s voice; but Christians in the grave are not dead, but only sleeping: and whether in the grave or going to it, they are not only hearers of Christ’s voice, but sharers of Christ’s vitality.
Of this implication of all His people in Christ’s Resurrection, the Apostle Paul gives a twofold illustration. He calls the rising Redeemer “the first-fruits of them that sleep” — and he calls Him “a quickening spirit.” The first-fruits were the handful of corn which first ripened in the field, or the first cluster which ripened on the tree, and which was not only often the richest in itself, but peculiarly welcome as announcing that the rest is coming. And so of that corn which has fallen into the ground and died, the handful first ripe has already gone home to God’s garner, and tells that the rest will follow; and though the remainder does not mature with the same miraculous rapidity, not a grain shall be lost. Time’s winter and the tears of separation have fallen over it like a dew upon herbs, and still it dwells in dust; but these heavens shall open, and earth’s atmosphere shall thrill with issuing immortality, and conscious of the quickening presence, the dwellers in the dust shall awake and sing, — together with Christ’s dead body shall they come — together with His dead body, and made blissfully like to His glorious body, — and in that instantaneous maturing the first-fruits are repeated over all the golden field, and the harvest of the earth is reaped. Again, as in Adam all the Adamic die, so in Christ all the Christian live. Those who have the blood of Adam in their veins have the mortality of Adam in their systems: those who have the spirit of Jesus in their souls, bear about with them the germ of a better resurrection. Each Adam is a representative; each is a public person; each is a covenant head; each has his own posterity. In Adam all die. His first sin brought death on himself and all his descendants; and though there was nothing else to cause it, such is sin’s malignity, that Adam’s first transgression would be sufficient to account for all the deaths that have ever been. But “as through the offence of one many died, so much more they who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.” And as that first transgression shall not have outwrought its full effects nor developed all its malignity till the last of our doomed species has gasped in mortal agony, and wrestled out the great death-struggle — till the last grave has been closed, and the last orphan has put the weeds of mourning on — so the riches of Christ’s righteousness, and the extent of Christ’s resurrection shall not be demonstrated till every grave is open, and the sea has given up its dead; and pointing to a multitude whom no man can number out of every kindred and nation — sons from the east and the west, from Africa and either Indies, from the snowy Alp and from the burning zone, with every feature merged in resemblance to His own glorious body — the Second Adam exclaims to the Father, “Here am I and the children which Thou hast given me.”
3. Christ rose a specimen of what His risen people shall be.
It would be interesting to know what like man was in the primeval paradise: what like he was when still sinless and unfallen. But for this we have few data; and with this we have not much to do. It is more important for us to know what like man shall be in his glorified body, and in the paradise restored; and for our conjectures here we have surer ground and more abundant materials. As regards the mode of His existence, an attentive reader may perceive a striking difference between Jesus not yet crucified, and the same Jesus risen. For many years He had been found in fashion as a man, and except on a few rare emergencies — as when He walked on the sea, and extricate I Himself from the mob at Nazareth — He did nothing to evince Him aught else than “bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh.” He hungered, He thirsted, He ate, He drank, He sought the refreshment of sleep, and when He exchanged one place for another, He footed all the intermediate space, and was sometimes weary with the journey. But after his resurrection there was a wonderful change. To shew disciples that it was still a true body which He wore, we find Him twice partaking of ordinary food; but of His place of abode, of His lodging or resting anywhere, we have not the slightest hint; and all unlike those previous years, when every movement was minutely known, and every day’s employments could be exactly recorded, the usual avocations of these forty days were utterly unknown. In what earthly home He sojourned, no disciple guessed, and how He was occupied, none presumed to ask. Except the walk to Emmaus, there were no more journeys with the Master in the midst; and though He was in Galilee and Jerusalem by turns, no one saw Him traversing the distance between. In the garden He accosts Mary Magdalene, and anon He intercepts her companions still hasting towards the city. At Emmaus, the two disciples recognise Him, but before they can follow up their delightful discovery, He again has vanished from their view j and that same evening the ten are assembled, and the door is firmly fastened: there is no footfall on the stair: the latch is not lifted: the bolt does not fly back, but Jesus is in the midst, saying, “Peace be unto you.” The truth is, our earth was no longer u His local residence. He had become the inhabitant of another region, from which He occasionally came to visit His disciples, till at last He took a visible departure, in order that they might cease to expect Him till the restitution of all things.”* The body which had been sown in dishonour was now raised in glory. It had been sown a natural body, but was now raised a spiritual body. It was amaranthine — immortal — a body which, once dead, could die no more — a materialism which no longer shrouded so closely the indwelling Godhead: a body which had already been within the veil, and which shed around it the calm and sanctity imported from that holy place — a body which made the upper chamber a Tabor, and the forty days a perpetual Transfiguration — a body which stone walls could not exclude, and which the earth’s gravitation could not detain — a body which could easily elude their observation; which was at once so identical that it could be infallibly recognised as that same Jesus, and withal so much fairer than the sons of men, that at first some of the five hundred doubted if it were really Himself. Without any studious reserve on His side, no wonder that there was now a felt remoteness on the side of disciples; and with its texture so fine and so emissive of the glory within, when the Wearer of this glorious
For the fall discussion of this interesting subject see Honle/s remarkable “Sermons on Our Lord’s Resurrection.”
humanity presented Himself on the Hill of Galilee, or beside the Lake of Tiberias, or in the upper room of the city, or finally left them on the skirts of Olivet, no wonder that the impulse was always the same, and that those who in other days were free to talk with the Master, now felt constrained to fall at His feet, and worship their God.
Something like this shall the risen Christian be. He knows not what he shall be, but he knows that when Christ appears, he shall be like Him. He looks for the Saviour, who shall change his vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto Christ’s glorious body. And as he has borne the image of the earthly Adam, he expects to bear the image of the heavenly. Without being able to go into every detail, he has obtained glimpses enough of a risen Redeemer during these forty days, to know that the corporeity he is hereafter to wear will have many forms and many exemptions at present unknown. It will be able to exchange one place for another with vast rapidity and without fatigue. It will be able to frequent scenes and enter places from which it is at present debarred. Like Jesus in the Upper Room, who perhaps had long been present before He was perceived, and who did not necessarily withdraw the instant He ceased to be seen, it may require a miracle to make itself palpable to flesh and blood; but its ordinary avocations and its familiar associates must be such as it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive. And like Christ’s glorified “body, it will hunger no more, neither thirst any more, and in the land where it dwells, the inhabitant u shall no more say, I am sick.”
4. Christ rose as a conqueror to commence a new dominion. “He must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is Death.” Nor will the end come till lie has conquered back the empire of the universe to the Godhead. “Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.” That reign is begun. That conquest is now proceeding. The Mediator is on the throne. He has received all power in Heaven and on Earth. His people are as safe as the subjects can be of One whose dominion ruleth over all. Nor will this mighty One put up His sword or stay His career of victory till all the universe is loyal, or all that is disloyal is disarmed; till moral evil has disappeared from the sight of a holy creation, banished to its own place; and having put down all opposing authority and power, Messiah can hand back to the Father His completed commission — as the Hun and the Sent of the Father doing homage to absolute lpeity, “that G*d may be all in all.
* 1 Cor. xv.
A Saviour’s resurrection is too seldom the subject of our thoughts. Even those who are “often at Gethsemane” too seldom go out as far as unto Bethany, and gaze up into Heaven along the track of an ascending Redeemer. Even those who sometimes look forth to Christ on the Cross, too seldom look up to Christ on the Throne. But if Jesus was delivered for our offences, He was raised again for our justification: and if we would lead an elastic, hopeful, and improving life, we must remember our Saviour as risen and reigning, and destined to come again.
To one great sorrow, especially, is Christ’s resurrection the surest antidote. “O Death, where is thy sting? O Grave, where is thy victory?” Death has a sting. It is a very dreadful evil. It is dismal to endure, and scarcely less dismal to anticipate. To lie down in pain, perhaps in racking agony: to count the slow-creeping minutes, and wish for evening dusk or morning dawn, which does arrive, but brings no balm of sleep, no sense of betterness: to grow confused, but still conscious of misery: to have wishes that cannot be understood, and words that will not utter: to see dear ones fading into the distance, and to be able to exchange no more love’s wonted tokens, not even a twinkle of the eye nor a murmur of the voice: to feel the breath stifling and the heart-strings breaking, and to be left alone in the midst of this cold and dreary mystery: — what can be more awful, unless it be his case who is the helpless looker-on; who watches pangs which he cannot assuage, and imploring looks which he cannot interpret; who plies cordials at which the King of Terrors mocks, and who importunes science for miracles which it cannot work; who in frantic desperation would detain the spirit which has already burst its earthly fetters, and, more frantic still, refuses to believe that the gulf is already crossed, and that the form which he enclasps is no longer a father or a mother, but only senseless clay; who must see these dear familiar features grow so ghastly, and then learn to love them in this new and mournful phasis, only to endure another woe when the coffin-lid is closed, and the funeral pomp sets forth, and from the macerating leaves and plashy turf of the churchyard the survivor comes back to the forsaken dwelling, and upbraids himself that, he should sit under the bright lamp, and before the blazing fire, while, beneath the bleak November night, that dear form is left to silence and to solitude. Death has a sting. There is often a pang in its very prospect. You arc well and happy; but the thought crosses you, * I must soon work my last day’s work, or play out my last holiday. Soon must I take my last look of summer, and spend my last evening with my friends. Soon must I be done with these pleasant books, and put the marker in where it will never again be moved. Soon must I vanish from these dear haunts, and this most beautiful world; and soon must I go down to the house of silence, and say to the worm, “Thou art my sister.” And yet, soon as that may be, still sooner may precious ones be taken, and force me to say, u I would not live always.” ‘Whether in the actual endurance or in the awful anticipation, death is very dreadful, and it used to have a sting which not only slew the victim, but extinguished the survivor’s hope. Thanks be to God for Jesus Christ. Thanks that there is one tomb which has already lost its tenant, and thanks for the news of how that happened. Thanks that the old penalty is now exhausted in the sinner’s Substitute, and that whatever great stone be placed on our sepulchre, there need be no grave-stone of guilt on the immortal soul. Thanks, O Father, for Thy gift unspeakable; thanks, O Saviour, for Thy love unfathomable. Thanks for tasting death for every man. Thanks for Thy glorious resurrection and beneficent reign. Thanks for Thy gracious promise to destroy the last enemy; and thanks, O Holy Spirit, the Comforter, for those to whom Thou hast given such union to Jesus that they feel as if they could never die — nay, that to depart and be with Christ is far better. “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
To get the full benefit of these assurances, the reader is earnestly exhorted to keep in memory his high calling and the Author of his better life. “Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.” Prize and use for its proper purposes the Lord’s day. As sacred but far more touching than the world’s primeval Sabbath, let its chiming minstrelsy ever remind you, u Christ is risen,” and seek to catch the suggestions of things not seen as yet which it wafts from the hills of Immortality. And sorrow not as those who have no hope concerning friends who sleep in Jesus. Considering that we “believe in the Kesurection of the dead, and the Life Everlasting” there is reason to apprehend that our whole feeling in this country regarding our departed friends is too funereal; and on behalf of England we have sometimes envied the brighter hope — the look of Easter morning, which seems to linger still in Luther’s land. With its emblems suggestive of Resurrection and Heaven, its churchyard is not a Pagan burial-ground, but the place where believers sleep, — a true cemetery, to which friendship can find it pleasant to repair and meditate. At the obsequies of Christian brethren it is not a funeral knell which strikes slowly
:U8 FINAL GLIMPSES.
and sternly; but from the village steeple there sheds a soft and almost cheerful requiem: and though there may be many wet eyes in the processicr., there are not many of the artificial insignia of woe, as the whole parish convoys the departed to his “bed of peaceful rest.” Once in the Black Forest we accompanied to the “Place of Peace” an old man’s funeral, and there still dwells in our ear the quaint and kindly melody which the parishioners sang along the road; and we have sometimes wished that we could hear the like in our own land, with its sombre and silent obsequies.
Neighbour, accept our parting song;
The road is short, the rest is long:
The Lord brought here, tha Lord takes hence, —
This is no house of permanence.
On bread of mirth and bread of tears
The pilgrim fed these chequer’ d years;
Now, landlord world, shut to the door,
Thy guest is gone for evermore.
—Gone to a realm of sweet repose,
His comrades bless him as he goes:
Of toil and moil the day was full,
A good sleep now, — the night is cooL
Ve village bells, ring, softly ring,
And in the blessed Sabbath bring,
Which from this weary work-day tryst
Awaits God’s folk through Jesus Christ.
And open wide, thou Gate of Peace,
And let this other journey cease,
Nor grudge a narrow couch, dear neighbours.
For slumbers won by life I< dc labour*.
Beneath these sods how close ye lie!
But many a mansion ’s in yon sky:
Ev’n now, beneath the sapphire throne,
Is his prepared through God’s dear Son.
“I quickly come,” that Saviour cries;
Yea, quickly come, this churchyard sighs
Come, Jesus, oome, we wait for thee, — Thine now and ever let us be.