to take these elements apart. The former remains,
but if the others are removed, the whole has changed its character and
is become another thing, and a very little thing.

The mere physical fact is a trifle. Look at it as you see it in the
animals; look at it as you see it in men when they actually come to it.
In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred it is painless and easy, and men
sink into slumber. Strange, is it not, that so small a reality should
have power to cast over human life so immense and obscuring a shadow!
Why? Because, as the Apostle says, 'the sting of death is sin,' and if
you can take the sting out of it, then there is very little to fear, and
it comes down to be an insignificant and transient element in our
experience.

Now, the death of Jesus Christ takes away, if I may so say, the _nimbus_
of apprehension and dread arising from conscience and sin, and the
forecast of retribution. There is nothing left for us to face except the
physical fact, and any rough soldier, with a coarse, red coat upon him,
will face that for eighteenpence a day, and think himself well paid.
Jesus Christ has abolished death, leaving the mere shell, but taking all
the substance out of it. It has become a different thing to men, because
in that death of His He has exhausted the bitterness, and has made it
possible that we should pass into the shadow, and not fear either
conscience or sin or judgment.

In this connection I cannot but notice with what a profound meaning the
Apostle, in this very verse, uses the bare, naked word in reference to
Him, and the softened one in reference to us. 'If we believe that Jesus
Christ _died_ and rose again, even so them also which sleep.' Ah! yes!
He died indeed, bearing all that terror with which men's consciences
have invested death. He died indeed, bearing on Himself the sins of the
world. He died that no man henceforward need ever die in that same
fashion. His death makes our deaths sleep, and His Resurrection makes
our sleep calmly certain of a waking.

So, dear 'brethren, I would not have you ignorant concerning them which
are asleep, that ye sorrow not even as others which have no hope.' And I
would have you to remember that, whilst Christ by His work has made it
possible that the terror may pass away, and death may be softened and
minimised into slumber, it will not be so with you--unless you are
joined to Him, and by trust in the power of His death and the
overflowing might of His Re