“The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death!”

Courtland heard the words with a shock of relief.  Here had he been under the depression of death—­death everywhere and always! threatening every life and every project of earth!  And now this confident sentence looking toward a time when death should be no more!  It came as something utterly new and original that there would be a time when no one should, ever fear death again because death would be put out of existence!  He had to look at it and face it as something to be recognized and thought out, a thing that was presenting itself for him to believe; as if the Christ Himself were having it read just for him alone to hear; as if those huddled curious women and the tearful doctor, and the calm-faced girl were not there at all, only Christ and the little dead child waiting to walk into another, realer life, and Courtland, there on the threshold of another world to learn a great truth.

“But some will say, How are the dead raised up?  And with what body do they come?”

Courtland looked up, startled.  The very thought that was dawning in his mind!  The child, presently to lie under the ground and return to dust!  How could there be a resurrection of that little body after years, perhaps?  How could there be hope for that wide-eyed sister with the sorrowful soul?

“Thou fool, that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain.”

He listened through the wonderful nature-picture, dimly understanding the reasoning; on to the words: 

“So also is the resurrection of the dead.  It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.”

He looked at the child lying there among the lilies, those spirituelle blossoms so ethereal and perfect that they almost seem to have a soul.  Was that the thought, then?  The little child laid under the earth like the bulb of the lily, to see corruption and decay, would come forth, even as the spirit of the lilies came up out of the darkness and mold and decay of their tomb under-ground, and burst into the glory of their beautiful blossoms, the perfection of what the ugly brown bulb was meant to be.  All the possibilities come to perfection! no accident or stain of sin to mar the glorified character! a perfect soul in a perfect, glorified body!

The wonder of the thought swelled within him, and sent a thrill through him with the minister’s voice as he read: 

“So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written:  Death is swallowed up in victory.  O death where is thy sting?  O grave, where is thy victory?  Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!”