It was all very neat and beautiful in the little, third-story back room.
The gas-stove and other things had disappeared behind the calico
curtain. Before it stood the small white coffin, with the beautiful boy
lying as if he were asleep, the roses strewn about him, and a mass of
valley-lilies at his feet. The girl, white and calm, sat beside him, one
hand resting across the casket protectingly.
Three or four women from the house had brought in chairs, and some of
the neighbors had slipped in shyly, half in sympathy, half in curiosity.
The minister was already there, talking in a low tone in the hall with
the undertaker.
The girl looked up when Courtland entered and thanked him for the
flowers with her eyes. The women huddled in the back of the room watched
him curiously and let no flicker of an eyelash pass without notice. They
were like hungry birds ready to pounce on any scrap of sentiment or
suspicion that might be dropped in their sight. The doctor came stolidly
in and went and stood beside the coffin, looking down for a minute as if
he were burning remedial incense in his soul, and then turned away with
the frank tears running down his tired, honest face. He sat down beside
Courtland. The stillness and the strangeness in the bare room were
awful. It was only bearable to look toward the peace in the small,
white, dead face; for the calm on the face of the sister cut one to the
heart.
The minister and the undertaker stepped into the room, and then it
seemed to Courtland as if One other entered also. He did not look up to
see. He merely had that sense of Another. It stayed with him and
relieved the tension in the room.
Then the voice of the minister, clear, gentle, ringing, triumphant,
stole through the room, and out into the hall, even down through the
landings, where were huddled some of the neighbors come to listen:
"And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me: Write--Blessed are the
dead which die in the Lord from henceforth ... But I would not have you
to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye
sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that
Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will
God bring with Him.... For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven
with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God:
and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and
remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the
Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore
comfort one another with these words."
Courtland listened attentively. The words were utterly new to him. If he
had heard them before on the few occasions when he had perforce attended
funerals, they had never entered into his consciousness. They seemed
almost uncannily to answer the desolating questions of his heart. He
listened with painful attention. Most remarkable statements!
"But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of
them that slept!"
He glanced instinctively around where it seemed that the Presence had
entered. He could not get away from the feeling that He stood just to
the left of the minister there, with bowed head, like a great one whose
errand and presence there were about to be explained. It was as if He
had come to take the little child away with Him. Courtland remembered
the girl's prayer the night the child died: "Go with little Aleck and
see that he is not afraid till he gets safe home." He glanced up at her
calm, tearless face. She was drinking in the words. They seemed to give
strength under her pitiless sorrow.
"The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death!"
Courtland heard the words with a shock of relief. Here had he been under
the depression of death--death everywhere and always! threatening every
life and every project of earth! And now this confident sentence looking
toward a time when death should be no more! It came as something utterly
new and original that there would be a time when no one should, ever
fear death again because death would be put out of existence! He had to
look at it and face it as something to be recognized and thought out, a
thing that was presenting itself for him to believe; as if the Christ
Himself were having it read just for him alone to hear; as if those
huddled curious women and the tearful doctor, and the calm-faced girl
were not there at all, only Christ and the little dead child waiting to
walk into another, realer life, and Courtland, there on the threshold of
another world to learn a great truth.
"But some will say, How are the dead raised up? And with what body do
they come?"
Courtland looked up, startled. The very thought that was dawning in his
mind! The child, presently to lie under the ground and return to dust!
How could there be a resurrection of that little body after years,
perhaps? How could there be hope for that wide-eyed sister with the
sorrowful soul?
"Thou fool, that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall
be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain."
He listened through the wonderful nature-picture, dimly understanding
the reasoning; on to the words:
"So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, it
is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in
glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a
natural body, it is raised a spiritual body."
He looked at the child lying there among the lilies, those spirituelle
blossoms so ethereal and perfect that they almost seem to have a soul.
Was that the thought, then? The little child laid under the earth like
the bulb of the lily, to see corruption and decay, would come forth,
even as the spirit of the lilies came up out of the darkness and mold
and decay of their tomb under-ground, and burst into the glory of their
beautiful blossoms, the perfection of what the ugly brown bulb was meant
to be. All the possibilities come to perfection! no accident or stain of
sin to mar the glorified character! a perfect soul in a perfect,
glorified body!
The wonder of the thought swelled within him, and sent a thrill through
him with the minister's voice as he read:
"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 thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be to God, which
giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!"
If Courtland had been asked before he came there whether he believed in
a resurrection he might have given a doubtful answer. During the four
years of his college life he had passed through various stages of
unbelief along with a good many of his fellow-students. With them he had
made out a sort of philosophy of life which he supposed he believed. It
was founded partly upon what he _wanted_ to believe and partly upon what
he could _not_ believe, because he had never been able to reason it out.
Up to this time even his experience with the Presence had not touched
this philosophy of his which he had constructed like a fancy scaffolding
inside of which he expected to fashion his life. The Presence and his
partial surrender to its influence had been a matter of the heart, and
until now it had not occurred to him that his allegiance to the Christ
was incompatible with his former philosophy. The doctrine of the
resurrection suddenly stood before him as something that must be
accepted along with the Christ, or the Christ was not the Christ! Christ
_was_ the resurrection if He was at all! Christ _had_ to be that, _had_
to have conquered death, or He would not have been the Christ; He would
not have been God humanized for the understanding of men unless He could
do God-like things. He was not God if He could not conquer death. He
would not be a man's Christ if He could not come to man in his darkest
hour and conquer his greatest enemy; put Himself up against death and
come out victorious!
A great fact had been revealed to Courtland: There was a resurrection of
the dead, and Christ was the hope of that resurrection! It was as if he
had just met Christ face to face and heard Him say so; had it all
explained to him fully and satisfactorily. He doubted if he could tell
the professor in the Biblical Literature class how, because perhaps _he_
hadn't seen the Christ that way; but others understood! That white,
strained face of the girl was not hopeless. There was the light of a
great hope in her eyes; they could see afar off over the loneliness of
the years that were to be, up to the time when she should meet the
little brother again, glorified, perfected, stainless!
It suddenly came to Courtland to think how Stephen Marshall would look
with that glorified body. The last glimpse he had had of him standing
above the burning pit of the theater with the halo of flames about his
head had given him a vision. A great gladness came up within him that
some day he would surely see Stephen Marshall again, grasp his hand,
make him know how he repented his own negative part in the persecution
that had led him to his death; make him understand how in dying he had
left a path of glory behind and given life to Paul Courtland.
In the prayer that followed the minister seemed as though he were
talking with dear familiarity to One whom he knew well. The young man,
listening, marveled that any dared come so near, and found himself
longing for such assurance and comradeship.
They took the casket out to a quiet place beyond the city, where the
little body might rest until the sister wished to take it away.
As they stood upon that bleak hillside, dotted over with white
tombstones, the looming city in the distance off at the right, Courtland
recognized the group of spreading buildings that belonged to-his
university. He marveled at the closeness of life and death in this
world. Out there the busy city, everybody tired and hustling to get, to
learn, to enjoy; out here everybody lying quiet, like the corn of wheat
in the ground, waiting for the resurrection time, the call of God to
come forth in beauty! What a difference it would make in the working,
and getting, and hustling, and learning, and enjoying if everybody
remembered how near the lying-quiet time might be! How unready some
might be to lie down and feel that it was all over! How much difference
it must make what one had done with the time over there in the city,
when the stopping time came! How much better it would be if one could
live remembering the Presence, always being aware of its nearness! To
live Christ! What would that mean? Was he ready to surrender a thought
like that?
The minister, it appeared, had a very urgent call in another direction.
He must take a trolley that passed the gate of the cemetery and go off
at once. It fell to Courtland to look after the girl, for the doctor had
not been able to leave his practice to take the long ride to the
cemetery. She, it seemed, did not hear what they said, nor care who went
with her.
Courtland led her to the carriage and put her in. "I suppose you will
want to go directly back to the house?" he said.
She turned to him as if she were coming out of a trance. She caught her
breath and gave him one wild, beseeching look, crying out with something
like a sob: "Oh, how can I _ever_ go back to that room _now_?" And then
her breath seemed suddenly to leave her and she fell back against the
seat as if she were lifeless.
He sprang in beside her, took her in his arms, resting her head against
his shoulder, loosened her coat about her throat, and chafed her cold
hands, drawing the robes closely about her slender shoulders, but she
lay there white and without a sign, of life. He thought he never had
seen anything so ghastly white as her face.
The driver came around and offered a bottle of brandy. They forced a few
drops between her teeth, and after a moment there came a faint flutter
of her eyelids. She came to herself for just an instant, looked about
her, realized her sorrow once more, and dropped off into oblivion again.
"She's in a bad way!" murmured the driver, looking worried. "I guess
we'd better get her somewheres. I don't want to have no responsibility.
My chief's gone back to the city, and the other man's gone across the to
West Side. I reckon we'd better go on and stop at some hospital if she
don't come to pretty soon."
The driver vanished and the carriage started at a rapid pace. Courtland
sat supporting his silent charge in growing alarm, alternately chafing
her hands and trying to force more brandy between her set lips. He was
relieved when at last the carriage stopped again and he recognized the
stone buildings of one of the city's great hospitals.