Fancy may legitimately employ this story as setting forth for us under
a lovely image the facts of Christian death, if only we acknowledge
that such a use is entirely the work of fancy. But, making that
acknowledgment, may we not make the use? Is not Death, too, God's
messenger to souls that love Him, 'mighty and beauteous, though his
face be hid'? Would it not be more Christian-like, and more congruous
with our eternal hope, if we pictured him thus than by the hideous
emblems of our cemeteries and tombs? He comes to Christ's servants, and
his touch is gentle though his fingers are icy-cold. He removes only
the chains that bind us, and we ourselves are emancipated by his touch.
He leads us to 'the iron gate that leadeth into the city,' and it opens
to us 'of its own accord.' But he disappears as soon as our happy feet
have touched the pavement of that street of the city which is 'pure
gold, as transparent as glass,' and in the midst of which flows the
river of the crystal-bright 'water of life proceeding out of the throne
of God and of the Lamb.' Then, when we see the Face as of the sun
shining in his strength, we shall come to ourselves, and 'know of a
surety that the Lord hath sent His angel and delivered' us from all our
foes and ills for evermore.