it? It was the same to Him whether Enoch died or whether He simply
took him to Himself. If one wants to know what men would have made
of such a thing, if _they_ had had to tell it, let them read
those wretched Rabbinical fables that have been stitched on to this
verse. There they will see how men describe miracles; and here they
will see how God does so.

'_He was not_.' As I have said, he disappeared; that was what
the world knew. 'God took him'; that was what God tells the world.

Thus this strange exception to the law of death stood, as I suppose,
to the ancient world as doing somewhat the same office for them that
the translation of Elijah afterwards partially did for Israel, and
that the resurrection of Jesus Christ does completely for us, viz.
it brought the future life into the realm of fact, and took it out
of the dim region of speculation altogether. He establishes a truth
who proves it, and he proves a fact that shows it. A doctrine of a
future state is not worth much, but the fact of a future state,
which was established by this incident then, and is certified for us
all now, by the Christ risen from the dead, is all-important. Our
gospel is all built upon facts, and this is the earliest fact in
man's history which made man's subsistence in other conditions than
that of earthly life a certainty.

And then, again, this wonderful exception shows to us, as it did to
that ancient world, that the natural end of a religious life is
union with God hereafter. It seems to me that the real proofs of a
future life are two: one, the fact of Christ's resurrection, and the
other, the fact of our religious experience. For anything looks to
me more likely, and less incredible, than that a man who could walk