lifted forever; and when He ascended up on high He led His troop of
captives redeemed from the bondage of death and hell.

It is through these lifted Gates that the companies of the sanctified
have been streaming ever since; and the difference that has been made in
our view of death has been immense. If we have the faith of a Christian
death has been transformed. There remains, of course, the natural grief
which is ours when we part from those whom we love. This grief is
natural and holy as it is in fact an expression of our love. It is not
rebellion against the will of God, but is the expression of a feeling
wherewith God has endowed us. But there is no longer in it the sting of
hopelessness that we find, for instance, in the inscriptions on pagan
tombs, nay, on tombs still, though created by Christians and found in
Christian cemeteries. Rather it is the expression of a love which is
learning to exercise itself under new conditions. We do not find it
possible to reverse all our habits in a moment; and the new relation
with the dead is one to which we have to learn to accustom ourselves. I
remember a case where a mother and a son had never been separated for
more than a day at a time, though he was far on in manhood. There came a
time of indeterminate separation and the mother's grief was intense
notwithstanding that there was no thought of a permanent separation. It
took some time for her to accustom herself to the new mode of
communication by letter. It is not far otherwise in death; it takes some
time for us to accustom ourselves to the new mode of intercourse through
prayer, but we succeed, and the new intercourse is very real and very
precious. In a sense, too, it is a nearer, more intimate intercourse. It
lacks the homely, daily touches, no doubt; but in compensation it
reveals to us the spiritual values in life. We speedily learn, we learn
almost by a spiritual instinct, what are the common grounds on which we
can now meet. By our intercourse with our dead we get a new grasp on the
truth of our common life in Christ: it is in and through Him that all
our converse is now mediated. We have little difficulty in knowing what
are the thoughts and interests which may be shared under the new
conditions in which we find ourselves. Our perception of spiritual
interests and spiritual values grows and deepens, and our communion with
our dead becomes an indication of the extent of our own
spiritual growth.

There come tim