“’Console, if you will, I can bear it,
          ’Tis a well-meant alms of breath;
        But not all the preaching since Adam
          Has made Death other than Death!’

“How true!  And God intended it should be so.  Surely, it is His desire that we should love to live in the earth which He has given us.  Surely, it is His desire that we should love those who are about us, and that we should mourn when the earthly parting comes.  And yet, ‘it is impossible,’ as Jonathan Swift has said, ’that anything so natural, so necessary and so universal as death should ever have been designed by Providence as an evil to mankind.’  With this thought, we may lift our faces once more, and as we dry our tears, forget the problems, the sorrows and the triumphs of earth as we ask ourselves the question, ‘What shall we be in the coming ages?’ Compared with this question, all others sink into insignificance.  Science, discovery, commercial achievement, social problems, the rise and fall of nations—­all come to us and claim attention, but we brush them aside as we repeat, with passionate earnestness:  What shall we be—­we, ourselves—­in the coming time?

“No matter how long we ask the question, no matter how earnestly we seek the solution, we shall not be satisfied with an answer, for God has not intended that we should know.  The Apostle John, ’whom Jesus loved,’ admits that ‘it doth not yet appear what we shall be.’

“Does it mean, then, that we should look ahead, and see nothing before us but the grave—­the end of all? [Draw the grave, the headstone, and the word, “Death,” with black, completing Fig. 39.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 39]

“Perhaps the disciples, their hearts bowed down with grief and disappointment, held this thought as they saw the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea sealed upon the body of their beloved Master.  But three days pass, and lo!—­all is changed!  The stone is rolled away and Christ has risen!  How the message spreads!  He is with them once again, and blessed days they are!  But it is not for long, for heaven receives Him from their sight.  Clearly, then, came to them again His words, ’I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am ye may be also.’  What!  They, too?  Yes, for did he not say, also, ’Marvel not at this, for the hour is coming, in which all that are in their graves shall hear His voice and come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life.’

“Today, there comes to us anew the revelation of the truth which came to the disciples on that wonderful resurrection morn.  True, it may be that our pathway may lead more quickly than we think to this place which we call the grave. [Draw pathway to the grave.] True, there is a wall between human vision and the mysterious beyond. [Draw the wall.] But true, also, and gloriously true, is it that the grave opens to us the mysteries beyond the wall. [Draw line to change headstone to door]—­while the pathway leads to—­what?  We can only suggest it here, with a few feeble lines. [Draw distant city, in red, using orange for rays of light.  Add the word “Life,” completing Fig. 40.]