sight, said: 'He hath abolished death,' the physical fact remaining
still.

By His resurrection Jesus Christ has established immortality as a
certainty for men. I can understand a man, who has persuaded himself
that when he dies he is done with, dressing his limbs to die without
dread if without hope. But that is a poor victory over death, which,
even in the act of getting rid of the fear of it, invests it with
supreme and ultimate power over humanity. Surely, surely, to believe
that the grave is a blind alley, with no exit at the other end,--to
believe that, however it may minister to a quiet departure, is no
victory over the grave. But to die believing, on the other hand, that it
is only a short tunnel through which we pass, and come out into fairer
lands on the other side of the mountains, is to conquer that last foe
even while it seems to conquer us.

Jesus Christ, who died that we might never die, lives that we may always
live. For His immortal life will give to each of us, if we join
ourselves to Him by simple faith and lowly obedience, an immortal life
that shall persist through, and be increased by, the article of bodily
death. And when we pass into the higher realm of fulness of joy, then--
as Paul quotes the words of my text--'shall be brought to pass the
saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.'

Dear brethren, gather all these thoughts together. Do they not plead
with you to cast yourselves on Jesus Christ, and to turn to Him alone?
He will give you the food of your souls; if you will not sit at His
table you will starve. He will strip you of the covering that is cast
over you, as over us all; if you will not let Him unwind its folds from
your limbs, then like the clothes of a drowning man, they will sink you.