cheerful, full of earnestness and full of hope, believe
our Lord's words which He spoke during these very forty days,--"Lo, I am
with you alway, even to the end of the world." Believe that heaven has
not taken Him away from you, but brought Him nearer to you; and that He
has ascended up on high, not that He, in whom alone is life, might empty
this earth of His presence, but that He might fill all things, not this
earth only, but all worlds, past, present, and to come. Believe that
wherever two or three are gathered together in Christ's name, there He is
in the midst of them; that the holy communion is the sign of His
perpetual presence; and that when you kneel to receive the bread and
wine, Christ is as near you--spiritually, indeed, and invisibly, but
really and truly--as near you as those who are kneeling by your side.

And if it be so with Christ, then it is so with those who are Christ's,
with those whom we love. It is the Christ in them which we love; and
that Christ in them is their hope of glory; and that glory is the glory
of Christ. They are partakers of His death, therefore they are partakers
of His resurrection. Let us believe that blessed news in all its
fulness, and be at peace. A little while and we see them; and again a
little while and we do not see them. But why? Because they are gone to
the Father, to the source and fount of all life and power, all light and
love, that they may gain life from His life, power from His power, light
from His light, love from His love--and surely not for nought?

Surely not for nought, my friends. For if they were like Christ on
earth, and did not use their powers for themselves alone, if they are to
be like Christ when they shall see Him as He is, then, more surely, will
they not use their powers for themselves, but, as Christ uses His, for
those they love.

Surely, like Christ, they may come and go, even now, unseen. Like
Christ, they may breathe upon our restless hearts and say, Peace be unto
you--and not in vain. For what they did for us when they were on earth
they can more fully do now that they are in heaven. They may seem to
have left us, and we, like the disciples, may weep and lament. But the
day will come when the veil shall be taken from our eyes, and we shall
see them as they are, with Christ, and in Christ for ever; and remember
no more our anguish for joy that a man is born into the world, that
another human bein