Easter day says, The body may turn to the dust from
which it was taken, but the spirit lives for ever before God, who shall
give it another body, as it shall please Him, as He gives to every seed
its own body. And, therefore, Easter day says, There is something better
for a man than to eat and drink and enjoy himself, for to-morrow he may
die, and all be over; and that something is, to labour not merely for the
meat which perishes with the perishing body, but to labour after the
fruits of the spirit--love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness,
goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. These the life of the body does
not give us; and these the death of the body not take away from us; for
they are spiritual and heavenly, eternal and divine; and he who has them
cannot die for ever. And therefore, we may comfort ourselves in all our
labour, if only we labour at the one useful work on earth, to be good,
and to do good, and to make others good likewise.
True it is, as St. Paul says, that if in this life only we have hope in
Christ we are of all men most miserable.
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