If Courtland had been asked before he came there whether he believed in a resurrection he might have given a doubtful answer.  During the four years of his college life he had passed through various stages of unbelief along with a good many of his fellow-students.  With them he had made out a sort of philosophy of life which he supposed he believed.  It was founded partly upon what he wanted to believe and partly upon what he could not believe, because he had never been able to reason it out.  Up to this time even his experience with the Presence had not touched this philosophy of his which he had constructed like a fancy scaffolding inside of which he expected to fashion his life.  The Presence and his partial surrender to its influence had been a matter of the heart, and until now it had not occurred to him that his allegiance to the Christ was incompatible with his former philosophy.  The doctrine of the resurrection suddenly stood before him as something that must be accepted along with the Christ, or the Christ was not the Christ!  Christ was the resurrection if He was at all!  Christ had to be that, had to have conquered death, or He would not have been the Christ; He would not have been God humanized for the understanding of men unless He could do God-like things.  He was not God if He could not conquer death.  He would not be a man’s Christ if He could not come to man in his darkest hour and conquer his greatest enemy; put Himself up against death and come out victorious!

A great fact had been revealed to Courtland:  There was a resurrection of the dead, and Christ was the hope of that resurrection!  It was as if he had just met Christ face to face and heard Him say so; had it all explained to him fully and satisfactorily.  He doubted if he could tell the professor in the Biblical Literature class how, because perhaps he hadn’t seen the Christ that way; but others understood!  That white, strained face of the girl was not hopeless.  There was the light of a great hope in her eyes; they could see afar off over the loneliness of the years that were to be, up to the time when she should meet the little brother again, glorified, perfected, stainless!

It suddenly came to Courtland to think how Stephen Marshall would look with that glorified body.  The last glimpse he had had of him standing above the burning pit of the theater with the halo of flames about his head had given him a vision.  A great gladness came up within him that some day he would surely see Stephen Marshall again, grasp his hand, make him know how he repented his own negative part in the persecution that had led him to his death; make him understand how in dying he had left a path of glory behind and given life to Paul Courtland.

In the prayer that followed the minister seemed as though he were talking with dear familiarity to One whom he knew well.  The young man, listening, marveled that any dared come so near, and found himself longing for such assurance and comradeship.