Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1899-04-03

He lives, they live also.
Remember what the life Of Christ
was after His death and resurrection.
Although it moved in a divine orbit,
yet it intersected the lives Of the disci-
pies again and again for forty years.
and it appeared that death had in no
way affected His identity. He was
more the same, than many OF US would
be after a voyage round the world.
All the old friendly touches remain,
the style, the tone of voice. He has
not broken in any way with His past,
and it's associations sad and joyful;
He has carried it with Him into that
other sphere. Now the disciples live
because the Master lives. His disciples
lives in the same fashion as the Mas
ter lives. There is, of course, this diff
ference, that not till Christ's second
and final coming will His people live
in their renewed and glOrified bodies
as He lives. But, none the less, they
live. What meaning, otherwise, is
there in that word of Christ so abso-
lutely specific, To-day shalt thou be
with Me in paradise?" or, in that al
tentative of Paul, when he was weigh
ing the reasons for going or staying
ITO be absent from the body is to be
present with the Lord
To earthly seeming, our departed
loved ones sleep, and they do well to
sleep; but behind the sleeping face
there began, when the sleep began, an
other life, and that life goes on. 1t is
the life of the spirits Of just men made
perfect II thinking OF death, and
speaking Of it, we often falter with
words, and allow our senses to deceive
US. Unfortunately, the word death is
used in double sense. Sometimes it
means the opposite of life, and some
times it means the opposite OF birth.
The word in the one case means the
beginning of state, the mere act of
dying; in the other, it means the state
itself. Now, of the state or condition
called death, so far as it relates to the
spirit, our senses tell us absolutely
nothing. All our senses tell us is OF
that act Or process which the spirit
passes out of the state which we call
life. The rest is silence, but 1t is the
silence of absence, not of inability.
The life has passed elsewhere. AS a
great preacher has said, death is but a
passage, tits not a house; it is only
vestibule. The grave has a door on
it's inner side; we roll the stone to its
mouth, and come away thinking we
have let our dear ones there till the
resurrection. But when the outer ac-
cess to earth is fast closed, the inner
portal that opens on heaven is set wide
open and God says to His child, Come
enter into thy chamber, and shut thy
doors about thee until the indignation
be overpast.' Considering the limita-
lions of our present eXistence-limita-
tons imposed upon us by our senses
why should we esteem it as anything
but an emancipation to be set free
from the life Of sense, to be drawn
nearer God?
Those to whom the words of Christ
and His apostles are words of God, can
not except indeed in'mOments OF cloud
ed faith, conceive of the departed be-
levers as being less alive now, than
they were on earth. They are more
alive. They are not half unconscious.
They are profoundly conscious. They
rest from earth's labors, but not from
all labOrs. They serve God. They are
delivered from care and sorrow. They
have thrown off the faint of sin. They
are not tormented with the fear of
change or apOstacy. They are deliver
ed from the terror of death. for they
know what death is, and they know it
to be nothing harmful, since Christ
died for them. We cannot Of course
say that much in this connection has
been revealed, for admittedly the full
light OF revelation has not fallen on the
future, but on the present. But Christ
is in that unseen region just as truly
as He once was in this region of the
seen and temporal. And they live
there, because He lives there. That is
the great point to hold by. Christ's
resurrection did not mean what
an ordinary resurrection meant-the
resurrection of Lazarus, for example.
1t was not coming back to the life OIL
earth. 1t was carrying of the life OIL
earth with Him into heaven-into the
future. The bodies of those whom we
knew and loved are not yet risen with
His body, but their spirits are with
his spirit, and that is enough.
Ihlrd-Once more, consider what
ChrlSts words mean or us. l do not
speak at present of victory over the
lear OF death, or even over death itself.
Here is something more than that.
Here is a statement supported by num-
erous other statements, which puts our
future life beside Christ's life. BE
cause | live, We shall live Also" When
we think of Christ as giving away His
life for the life OF the world
to rescue man from death
when we think of Him as placing US
beyond sin and harm behind the bull
warks of the everlasting kingdom. we
have only grasped half the truth of the
Gospel. By life, He means more than
this. Life is not measured by years or
by heart-beats. Life is purpose, effort,
experience, feeling, victory. Life is
love. Life is self-sacrifce. The life of
Christ, Of the Christ who came among
men, was the very will, and the truth,
and the compassion of God working
through human heart. Now, if the
life of those who love Christ is bound
up with Him, and runs on parallel
lines, that can only be because ti.ey
move tremendously, because the same
kind of life is moving in them which
moved in Christ. We know-at least,
hope we all know-how life intensi-
fieS and grows more real. AS we widen
our sphere >of interest, we live more
truly and deeply. The Christian think
er or the Christian poet has more life