Death is not death, then, if it kills no part of us, save that which hindered us from perfect life.  Death is not death, if it raises us in a moment from darkness into light, from weakness into strength, from sinfulness into holiness.  Death is not death, if it brings us nearer to Christ, who is the fount of life.  Death is not death, if it perfects our faith by sight, and lets us behold Him in whom we have believed.  Death is not death, if it gives us to those whom we have loved and lost, for whom we have lived, for whom we long to live again.  Death is not death, if it joins the child to the mother who is gone before.  Death is not death, if it takes away from that mother for ever all a mother’s anxieties, a mother’s fears, and lets her see, in the gracious countenance of her Saviour, a sure and certain pledge that those whom she has left behind are safe, safe with Christ and in Christ, through all the chances and dangers of his mortal life.  Death is not death, if it rids us of doubt and fear, of chance and change, of space and time, and all which space and time bring forth, and then destroy.  Death is not death; for Christ has conquered death, for Himself, and for those who trust in Him.  And to those who say, ’You were born in time, and in time you must die, as all other creatures do; Time is your king and lord, as he has been of all the old worlds before this, and of all the races of beasts, whose bones and shells lie fossil in the rocks of a thousand generations;’ then we can answer them, in the words of the wise man, and in the name of Christ who conquered death:-

’Fly, envious time, till thou run out thy race,
And glut thyself with what thy womb devours,
Which is no more than what is false and vain
And merely mortal dross. 
So little is our loss, so little is thy gain. 
For when as each bad thing thou hast entombed,
And, last of all, thy greedy self consumed,
Then long eternity shall greet our bliss
With an individual kiss,
And joy shall overtake us as a flood,
When everything that is sincerely good
And perfectly divine,
And truth, and peace, and love shall ever shine
About the supreme throne
Of Him, unto whose happy-making sight alone
When once our heavenly-guided soul shall climb,
Then all this earthly grossness quit,
Attired with stars, we shall for ever sit
Triumphant over death, and chance, and thee, O Time!’

SERMON IV.  THE WAGES OF SIN (Chapel Royal June, 1864)

Rom. vi. 21-23.

What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death.  But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.  For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

This is a glorious text, if we will only believe it simply, and take it as it stands.