The resurrection of the body at the last
day, seems to be taught by many things around us. All nature
seems to have an onward and upward progress. The seeds of
vegetables first rot in the earth, before they grow and
blossom. The worm becomes the beautiful butterfly. The acorn
becomes the lofty oak. The leafless forest, so death-like in
the season of winter, when spring returns, is once more
clothed in garments of green, and the little hills rejoice on
every side. And why should man be an exception to this
universal law of revival and reproduction.
The doctrine of the resurrection is full
of comfort. How consoling the thought, that when you bury a
friend, you do not part with him forever; that when you stand
by the new made grave, and there commit the body to the silent
tomb, you can do it in the hope of a glorious resurrection;
when life shall once more animate the cold corpse, beauty once
more bloom on the pale cheek, intelligence once more beam from
the sunken eye, and shouts of rapture burst from the palsied
tongue!
But let the hope of the resurrection be
taken away, and how sad is the heart of the mourner! How
melancholy the state of the world! Death is everywhere at
work, cutting down our dying race. And the fairest are the
first to fall. The infant is torn from its mother's arms. The
maiden is cut down in her bloom and beauty; the young man,
when just bursting into manhood; and the man of mature years,
at the time when his family and his country most require his
life. But death is cruel and deaf. He heeds not our prayers.
He hurls his fatal dart. The grave opens its jaws, receives
its victim, and closes over him forever. Sorrowing friends
stand around the tomb, and weep and call; but call and weep in
vain. No voice of comfort comes up from the tomb. No lamp
lights up its darkness. Not a glimpse comes to the eye of
regions which lie beyond. All is silent, and cold and
comfortless.
At this sad moment of sorrow and
despair, Revelation approaches, and with a command delightful
and sublime, exclaims, "Lazarus come forth. Awake ye dead
and come to life." In a moment, the earth heaves, the
tomb opens; and a form bright as the sun, and arrayed in
garments of beauty, rises from the earth, and stretching its
wings towards heaven, enters a glorious city, whose walls are
made of jasper, whose gates are of pearl, whose streets are
pure gold, whose palaces are lighted up with the presence of
God himself, and whose high arches ring day and night, with
anthems from the lutes of Seraphims.
How blest the righteous when he dies!
When sinks a weary soul to rest,
How mildly beams the closing eyes,
How gently heaves the expiring breast.
So fades a summer cloud away,
So sinks the gale, when storms are o'er,
So gently shuts the eye of day,
So dies a wave along the shore.
My young friends, take care of the
bodies of the dead. They are very precious. They will rise
again. They will live forever. Mark their resting place.
Select beautiful spots for their burial. Let trees wave around
them. Plant flowers over them. Visit them often. Guard them
with a religious care. They contain precious dust. And at
last, the blast of the Archangel's trump shall awake them from
their long slumber, and they shall hunger and thirst, and weep
and die no more.
