stand, though gnawing time and hostile criticism should assail and
shake all the rest. It is something not to be mechanically wrought
upon us from without, but to be done within by our own voluntary
effort and prayer, by God's help. To rise from sloth, unbelief,
sin, from moral death, to earnestness, faith, beneficence, to
eternal life in the breast, is a real and most sublime
resurrection, the indispensable preparation for that other and
final one which shall raise us from the sepulchre to the sky.
When, on Easter morning, Christian disciples throughout the world
hear the joyous cry, "Christ is risen," and their own
hearts instinctively respond, with an unquenchable persuasion that
he is now alive somewhere in the heights of the universe, "Christ
is risen indeed," they should endeavor in spirit to rise too, rise
from the deadly bondage and corruption of vice and indifference.
While the earth remains, and men survive, and the evils which
alienate them from God and his blessedness retain any sway over
them, so oft as that hallowed day comes round, this is the
kindling message of Divine authority ever fresh, and of
transcendent import never old, that it bears through all the
borders of Christendom to every responsible soul: "Awake from your
sleep, arise from your death, lift up your eyes to heaven, and the
risen Redeemer will give you the light of immortal life!" Have
this awakening and deathless experience in the soul, and you will
be troubled by no doubts about an everlasting life succeeding the
close of the world. But so long as this spiritual resurrection in
the breast is unknown, you can have no knowledge of eternal life,
no experimental faith in a future entrance from the grave into
heaven, no, not though millions of resurrections had crowded the
interstellar space with ascending shapes. Rise, then, from your
moral graves, and already, by faith and imagination, sit in
heavenly places with Christ Jesus.

Before leaving this subject, it belongs to us to look at it as a
theory; that is, to consider with critical scrutiny the
conclusions which are supposed to flow from its central fact. We
must regard it from three distinct points of view, seeking its
meaning in sound logic, its force in past history, its value in
present experience. First, then, we are to inquire what really is
the logical significance of the resurrection of Christ. The
looseness and confusion of thought prevailing in relation to this
point are amaz