Paul, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, which they
hear at the burial of those whom they love and lose. Oh, blessed news
for us, and for those we love; those without whose company the world to
come would be lonely and cheerless to us. For now we can say, Tell me
not that as the beast dies, so dies the man. Tell me not that as Adam
died because of sin, so must I die, and all I love. Tell me not that it
is the universal law of nature that all things born in time must die in
time; and that every human being, animal, and plant carries in itself
from its beginning to its end a law of death, the seed of its own
destruction. I know all that; but I care little for it, because I know
more than that. I know that the man's body dies as the beast's body
dies; but I know that the body is not the man, but only the husk, the
shell of the man; that the true man, the true woman, lives on after the
loss of his mortal body; and that there is an eternal law of life, which
conquers the law of death; and by that law a fresh body will grow up
round the true man, the immortal spirit, and will be as fit--ay, far
fitter--to do his work, than this poor mortal body which has turned to
death on earth.
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