In Cairo I secured a few grains of wheat that had slumbered for more than thirty centuries in an Egyptian tomb.  As I looked at them this thought came into my mind:  If one of those grains had been planted on the banks of the Nile the year after it grew, and all its lineal descendants had been planted and replanted from that time until now, its progeny would to-day be sufficiently numerous to feed the teeming millions of the world.  An unbroken chain of life connects the earliest grains of wheat with the grains that we sow and reap.  There is in the grain of wheat an invisible something which has power to discard the body that we see, and from earth and air fashion a new body so much like the old one that we cannot tell the one from the other.  If this invisible germ of life in the grain of wheat can thus pass unimpaired through three thousand resurrections, I shall not doubt that my soul has power to clothe itself with a body suited to its new existence when this earthly frame has crumbled into dust.

A belief in immortality not only consoles the individual, but it exerts a powerful influence in bringing peace between individuals.  If one actually thinks that man dies as the brute dies, he will yield more easily to the temptation to do injustice to his neighbor when the circumstances are such as to promise security from detection.  But if one really expects to meet again, and live eternally with, those whom he knows to-day, he is restrained from evil deeds by the fear of endless remorse.  We do not know what rewards are in store for us or what punishments may be reserved, but if there were no other it would be some punishment for one who deliberately and consciously wrongs another to have to live forever in the company of the person wronged and have his littleness and selfishness laid bare.  I repeat, a belief in immortality must exert a powerful influence in establishing justice between men and thus laying the foundation for peace.

Again, Christ deserves to be called The Prince of Peace because He has given us a measure of greatness which promotes peace.  When His disciples quarreled among themselves as to which should be greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven, He rebuked them and said:  “Let him who would be chiefest among you be the servant of all.”  Service is the measure of greatness; it always has been true; it is true to-day, and it always will be true, that he is greatest who does the most of good.  And how this old world will be transformed when this standard of greatness becomes the standard of every life!  Nearly all of our controversies and combats grow out of the fact that we are trying to get something from each other—­there will be peace when our aim is to do something for each other.  Our enmities and animosities arise largely from our efforts to get as much as possible out of the world—­there will be peace when our endeavor is to put as much as possible into the world.  The human measure of a human life is its income; the divine measure of a life is its outgo, its overflow—­its contribution to the welfare of all.