them sat in the tomb where the body of Jesus had lain--they loosed the
napkin that was about his head, and "wrapped" it "together in a place by
itself;" and when Jesus had left the place, instead of following him,
they lingered, to comfort the weeping friends on their arrival at the
sepulchre. Can it be Michael, guardian of the dead Moses and his grave,
on "the great stone" which has been rolled "from the door of the
sepulchre"? Is he thinking how he will one day hear the command, "Take
ye away the stone" which covers all who sleep in Jesus? As the cross is
hallowed by the death of the Son of God upon it, the grave is hallowed
for the believer through the Saviour's burial. There are three places
which must possess intense interest for a glorified friend. One is his
home; another is his seat in the house of God; and another is his grave.
Let us cherish it. We do well to visit such a spot. Sometimes
approaching it with sadness and fear, we go away with surprising peace;
looking back for a last view of the stone, and feeling towards the spot
as we do when we are leaving little children in the dark for the night,
unutterable love, we find, has cast out fear. Those graves are treasures
which heaven has made sure, "sealing the stone, and setting a watch." Of
those who still live, we are not certain that, in the providence of God,
they will henceforth be an unmingled source of comfort; but they who are
in those graves are garnered fruits, are finished works, are each like
the rod of Aaron laid up in the ark, which "bloomed blossoms and yielded
almonds." All else which is dear to us on earth may seem changeful, or
changed; the property may have disappeared, the home may have been
broken tip, the plighted faith and love may have been recalled; the
whole condition of life may have been altered: but we visit that burial
spot, and there is permanence; that fast-anchored isle has defied the
surges and roaring currents; the grave seems beautifully constant; it
has not betrayed our confidence; it is not weary of its precious charge;
it has kindly staid behind to permit and encourage our griefs when all
else may have fled. The winter's snows have fallen, the tempests have
beaten, there; and now, this April or May morning, it is as steadfast
and quiet as when the slumber there began.
Great honor is paid to the dead in giving them precedence to the living
at the last day. "The dead in Christ shall rise first," that is, before
the living are changed;--they shall rise, and after that, in a moment,
in a twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, the living will be
transformed; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised
incorruptible, and we shall be changed. This is said in order to comfort
those who mourn the death of Christian friends,--intimating such care on
the part of their Redeemer, that the apostle is directed to tell us "by
the word of the Lord, that we which are alive, and remain to the coming
of the Lord, shall not" have precedence of "them that are asleep." It is
declared that the change of the living will be effected "in a moment, in
the twinkling of an eye." This must be a matter of pure revelation; for
it could not have been foretold, from any apparent probabilities,
whether it would happen instantaneously or by degrees. It is suited to
impress the mind with the power and majesty of Christ, inasmuch as this
is to be one of the great acts connected with his second coming, and as
really an exercise of his omnipotence as the raising of the dead. For he
is "Lord both of the dead and of the living."
"And the sea shall give up the dead that are in it." Many a form of a
believer is waiting there for the redemption of the body. Nor has it
escaped the eye of the great archangel. Wrapped in its rude shroud, or
decomposed and scattered, or in whatever way seemingly annihilated,
personal identity still attaches to it, and the all-seeing eye watches
every thing which is essential to that identity, as easily as though the
body were in the grave with kindred dust. That the power of God in the
resurrection may be fully illustrated, and that some may be preeminent
witnesses in their own persons of that mighty power, perhaps it will
appear that they were permitted, for that purpose, to be devoured, or to
dissolve and to waste away in the sea. If they who came out of great
tribulation are arrayed in white robes among the righteous, we may look
for some special sign of glory and joy in those who receive their
bodies, not from the sheltering grave, but from the sea, and from the
very frame of nature, into which their bodily organization will, in one
way and another, have been incorporated. O the unspeakable wonders and
raptures connected with the resurrection, both as it relates to our own
experience, and to the illustrations which the resurrection will afford,
of the divine wisdom and power. No wonder, we say, that Paul esteemed
it the height of Christian privilege, that he, as a redeemed human
being, "might attain unto the resurrection of the dead."
It is an innocent fancy, if it be not worthy of a better name, that the
great attention which has been given of late years to new cemeteries,
now in such contrast to the old graveyards, whose reckless disorder so
perfectly expressed abandonment to sorrow and unresisting surrender to
the last enemy, is a symptomatic token of growing faith in the great,
general heart of the Christianized part of the race, with regard to that
consummation of all things, the resurrection of the dead.
As at sea there is, within certain degrees of latitude and longitude, an
uphill and a downhill, made by the convexity of the globe, we, perhaps,
may have reached the meridian of the great voyage, and may have begun to
feel the inclination which will set us forward more swiftly to the end.
The power of the great consummation will be waxing stronger and
stronger. Men are looking to the cemeteries as places where great
treasures went down, or were abandoned, and they begin to think that
some great restoration awaits them. These costly and beautiful
cemeteries, which men are preparing, are like Hiram's contributions to
the building of the temple; they foretell some great thing; they have a
look not only of expectation, but of design, not merely of faith, but of
hope. With a truly liberal regard to the decoration of those burial
places with costly works of general interest, in the department of art,
we shall do well to make provision, by statute, for the perpetual repair
and preservation of every enclosure, and every grave, the whole body
corporate thus pledging itself, as far as possible, to each incumbent,
that his last resting place shall be the care of the perpetuated
fraternity to the end of time.
And when the prophecies are accomplished, and the stone cut out of the
mountain without hands has filled the earth, and the apostasy which is
to follow the general prevalence of religion, has deluged the world
with blood, and Satan, loosed a little season, is triumphing in his
maddened career, and the graves are full, and the souls under the altar,
with their importunate cry, can no longer wait for the avenging
arm,--then shall be seen the sign of the Son of man coming in the clouds
of heaven, with power and great glory.
As we commit a Christian friend to the earth, and as we visit his
resting place, let us think that now, the anticipation of the rising
from the dead is, to him, the great object of personal expectation and
hope. The time is not far distant, when, in heaven, we, in like manner,
shall be filled with that expectation, as we look down upon the places
where our bodies await the signal of the resurrection.
Let not the image of our friends, as sick and in pain, occupy our
thoughts. "For the former things are passed away." Their language, as
they call back to us, is, "As dying, and behold, we live."
We who have children and friends that sleep in Jesus, and who expect
ourselves to be, with them, and with one another, children of the
resurrection, will soon know each other in the presence of Christ. We
shall have become reunited in the presence of each other to our loved
and lost ones. The great question then will be, How did we fulfil God's
special and benevolent designs in our trials? If we revisit scenes of
deep affliction where death and the grave usurped their dread power over
us for a season, we shall remember our misery as waters that pass away.
In hope of this, we will patiently and joyfully labor and suffer. "The
night is far spent; the day is at hand."
* * * * *
On a pleasant morning in April, three months from the time of her
decease, the mortal part of the dear child whose name gives this book
its title, was removed from its temporary resting place in the city, to
her grave in the family cemetery. As the hands of her father, which
baptized her, laid her to rest in her sweet and peaceful bed, and the
simple stone, with her chosen "lilies of the valley and rose buds"
carved on it, was set up,--the gift of one whose consanguinity was made
by him the delicate ground of claim to do this touching and abiding act
of love,--it seemed as though, in some sense, there had already been
brought to pass the saying which is written, "Death is swallowed up in
victory."
But in the night, a gentle April shower fell; and as the thoughts were
carried by it, spellbound, from the chamber where she was born, to her
newly-made grave,--that night being the first of her sleeping there,--it
seemed very plain that, though Death had been conquered, the Grave still
kept possession of the field.--Christ "will be thy destruction," O
Grave, as he has been "thy plagues," O Death! The early rain seemed to
have made good haste in visiting the fresh mound and the flower seeds
already placed there, conspiring with them to cover the grave speedily
with emblems of the resurrection, as though, with confident boast and
exultation, they would, beforehand, say, "Where is thy victory?" Simple
thoughts and fancies, which we hardly dare utter, have wonderful power,
in great sorrows, to change the whole current of the feelings; for while
that soft shower was heard, falling on the grave, it seemed as if a
heavenly watcher was in care of the place; and so, leaving them
together, it was easy and pleasant to fall asleep.
* * * * *
And now, seeing that there is not one experience in this volume which is
not, or may not be, enjoyed, and surpassed, by every dying saint, and by
surviving friends, and as the narrative is thus saved from all just
thought either of ostentation, or of setting forth a discouraging
standard of experience, may the book find protection from those who,
knowing the innocent weaknesses, and, at the same time, the blessedness,
of those who mourn, will kindly appreciate the motives with which it is
written. For more than a year the narrative has been laid by, from
indefinable reluctance at the thought of publication. But this
affliction, which was, at first, like the bulb of the hyacinth with its
white, pendulous roots in water,--those symbols of hope and pledges of
growth,--has now bloomed and become fragrant with such comforts and
consolations, that we venture to set the plant in our window, perchance
it may meet the eye of one and another as they walk and are sad. Perhaps
it may, here and there, win love and praise for Jesus. "He hath done all
things well."