Thoughts on the Resurrection.
By L. D. Santee
How often do sad hearts turn lovingly to the cold and silent churchyard, in the vain wish to recall the departed. How often do pale lips quiver as the mind wanders to some sunny head, above which the tall grass is waving. We are led to exclaim with the apostle, “If in this life only we have hope, we are of all men most miserable.” 1 Cor. xv, 19. How often would we moan with anguish, thinking of the loved ones who have passed away, were it not for the hope we have centering in the resurrection. I love to think of the time when our friends who have suffered disease and death, and whom we have laid away for a little while in the earth, shall be waked by the voice of the Archangel and the trump of God. Oh the joy of that meeting! Parting shall be no more, and all sorrow and sighing shall flee away. When the dear Saviour cometh to gather his elect, not one of his waiting children will be left. There is no dungeon dark enough to hide one of his ransomed people. No sea deep enough to retain one of them within its depths, and the dear, persecuted saints whose bodies have been bruised upon the rack, whose bones have been broken on the wheel, shall awake to everlasting joy and pleasures forevermore. Thank God for the Christian’s hope! Like Paul I am willing to endure suffering, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Phil. iii, 11. When the clods fall upon the coffins of our friends, how cheering to think that it will be but a little while until they shall come again from the land of the enemy, when death shall be destroyed and he that hath the power of death. “And when that bright morning
In splendor shall dawn,
Our tears will be ended,
Our sorrows all gone.” Let us continue faithful in well-doing, and immortality will be conferred on us in that morning.