the world, of which he himself says that he saw only through a glass
darkly; and we cannot expect to have clearer eyes than he. But this
he seems to have seen, that the Lord, when He rose again, bought a
blessing even for the dumb beasts and the earth on which we live.
For he says, the whole creation is now groaning in the pangs of
labour, being about to bring forth something; and the whole creation
will rise again; how, and when, and into what new state, we cannot
tell. But St. Paul seems to say that when the Lord shall destroy
death, the last of his enemies, then the whole creation shall be
renewed, and bring forth another earth, nobler and more beautiful
than this one, free from death, and sin, and sorrow, and redeemed
into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

But this, on the other hand, St. Paul did see most clearly, and
preached it to all to whom he spoke, that the ground and reason of
this great and glorious mystery was the thing which happened on the
first Easter-day, namely, the Lord Jesus rising from the dead. About
that, at least, there was no doubt at all in his mind. We may see it
by the Easter anthem, which we read this morning, taken out of the
fifteenth chapter of his first epistle to the Corinthians:

"Christ is risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them
that slept.

"For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of
the dead.

"For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."

Now he is not talking here merely of the rising again of our bodies