Whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality?
Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror,
Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction?
'Tis the divinity that stirs within us;
'Tis heaven itself that points out an hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man.
Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought!--Addison.
"Ask and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall find; knock and it
shall be opened unto you." So spake the Savior. "We know," says Paul,
"that all things work together for good to them that love God. In a
moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet
shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be
changed. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and
this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to
pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O
death, where is my sting? O grave, where is thy victory? For I am now
ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have
fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:
henceforth there is laid up for me