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IMMOKTALITF.

A SERMON BY THE REV. GEORGE DANA BOARDMAN, D. D., LL. D.,
Pastor of the First Baptist Church in Philadelphia,
PREACHED BEFORE THE
NORTH PHILADELPHIA BAPTIST ASSOCIATION,
October lit, 1891,
And Published by order cf the Association.

IMMORTALITY

IMMORTALITY.

A SERMON BY GEORGE DANA BOARDMAN, D. D., LL. D.,
Pastor of the First Baptist Church in Philadelphia.

" Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life : he that believeth
in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live : and whosoever liveth and be
lieveth in me shall never die. Believest thou this ?" — John xi : 25, 26.
"If a man die, shall he live again ? " So asked the an
guished patriarch of Uz milleniums ago. No doubt he asked it
sincerely. For, although he was a perfect and upright man, one
that feared God, and eschewed evil, yet God seems to have left him
to work out in large measure the problem of immortality from the
standpoint of natural religion. And from that standpoint he misera
bly failed. Nor was Job the only man who has asked that question.
Countless times it has been asked since. Perhaps no serious ques
tion is oftener asked to-day. The sense of wrong asks it ; looking
out upon the vast disorders of society — the right overthrown, the
wrong triumphant — it asks : " Is there no coming day of rectifica
tion ? ' ' The sense of reverence asks it ; seeing the miserable fail
ure of so many noble plans and sacrifices, it asks : " Are the saintly
annihilated ? ' ' The sense of grief asks it j standing by the shrouded
corpse, it asks : " Is my friend for ever dead ?" The sense of per
sonality asks it ; conscious of personal identity, it asks: "How
about myself a thousand years hence. ' ' The sense of dread asks
it ; sensible of guilty default, it asks : " Has the just God nothing
against me after death ?' ' The sense of hope asks it ; conscious of
mighty faculties, it asks: "Does death complete my capacity of
possibilities?" Job's question is probably earth's most pathetic

4 IMMORTALITY.
problem. Uncertainty here is torture. Thus the prisoner Claudio
to his sister Isabella in Measure for Measure :
Ay, but to die, and go we know not where ;
To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod ; and this de-lighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice ;
To be imprison' d in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world ; or to be worse than worst
Of these, that lawless and incertain thoughts
Imagine howling ! — 'Tis too horrible !
The weariest and most loathed worldly life,
That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment
Can lay on nature, is a paradise
To what we fear of death.
So Hamlet in the Castle of Elsinore :
To be, or not to be, — that is the question ;
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
( >r to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them ? To die, — to sleep, —
No more ; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, — ' tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die ; — to sleep ; —
To sleep ! perchance to dream ! ay, there's the rub ;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause ; there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life ;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of disprized love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin ? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?

IMMORTALITY. 5
Yes ; If a man die, shall he live again ?— is earth's profoundest,
most thrilling question.
Whither then shall we turn for a certain answer?
To Physiology ? But physiology tends to materialism. Listen to
some of its deliverances :— " The brain secretes thought, as the liver
secretes bile;" " The brain itself is the soul;" « Reason, imagina
tion, love, will, conscience, are groups of atoms moving in certain
ways;" " No phosphorus, no thought ; " " As a man eats, so is
he ;" " Ethics is a bill of fare ;" " Worship— like heat, light, elec
tricity— is a mode of motion ;" •' When a man's body dies, that is
the end of him ;" etc. Does physical science help you in this great
matter of immortality ?
To Metaphysics? But metaphysics is a science too abstract
to admit of demonstration in a matter so concrete as personality.
What argument is so fascinating in its method, yet so shadowy in
its result as Plato's Photdo ? What discussion so scientific in
its steps, but so dim in its conclusion as Stewart's and Tait's Un
seen Universe ? Metaphysics is no solace for heart-questions.
To the Instinct of Lnmortality ? How strong this instinct is
may be seen in those burial rites of heathen nations which provide
for the comfort of the dead on their mysterious journey into the
hereafter : for instance ; the obolus which the Greeks placed in the
mouth of the corpse, or the coin which the Kelts to this day place
in his hand, to meet the expenses of the solemn journey ; the bow
and arrows which the Indian provides for the traveler to the happy
hunting grounds ; the flint and tinder which the Laplanders bury
to furnish light for the dark journey ; the horse and armor which
the Norsemen buried for the dead hero's triumphant ride ; the pa
per images of sedan porters which the Chinese scatter Over the
grave to help along in the sombre pilgrimage ; the |dog which the
Greenlanders bury with the child to guide him in yonder mysterious
country. How graphically Addison portrays this instinct in his
Tragedy of Cato :

6 IMMORTALITY.
It must be so, — Plato, thou reasonest well. —
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality ?
Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror,
Or falling into naught ? Why shrinks the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction ?
'Tis the divinity that stirs within us ;
'Tis heaven itself that points out an hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man.
So Wordsworth in his Intimations :
Those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings ;
Blank misgivings of a Creature
Moving about in worlds not realized,
High instincts before which our mortal Nature
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised.
Alas, instinct, however intense, is not demonstration.
To Analogies of Nature ? Very beautiful are the poetic inter
pretations of the re-emergence of the spring-leaves ; the transforma
tion of the caterpillar into the butterfly ; the classic legends of the
Phoenix and the Psyche. Alas, the analogy fails just at the point
where it ought to win. Neither the tree nor the caterpillar actually
died. But uproot the tree, so that the stump is actually dead ;
crush the caterpillar, so that its life is absolutely extinguished:
think you that the tree will ever put forth spring-leaves, or that the
caterpillar will ever flutter in the golden sunlight ? Even the pa
triarch Job in his far off day detected the weakness of this argu
ment from analogy :
There is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again,
And that the tender branch thereof will not cease :
Though the root thereof wax old in the earth,
And the stock thereof die in the ground ;
Yet through the scent of water it will bud,
And put forth boughs like a plant.
But man dieth, and wasteth away :
Yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he ?
As the waters fail from the sea,
And the river decayeth and drieth up ;
So man lieth down and riseth not :
Till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake;
Nor be roused out of their sleep.

IMMORTALITY. 7
Analogies of nature are not proofs in the unseen world.
To the Old Testament ? Its view of a future life, it must be
confessed, was comparatively dim. Conceiving Israel as one great
national person rather than as a nation of persons, its moral sanc
tions were largely temporal and physical ; material blessings of wealth
and honor and family and longevity ; material curses of poverty and
disgrace and sickness and violent death. Hence the vagueness of
the Old Testament conception of the hereafter. Listen to David :
In death there is no remembrance of thee :
In Sheol (abode of the dead) who shall give thee thanks ?
Listen to wise Koheleth :
That which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts ; even
one thing befalleth them : as the one dieth, so dieth the other ; yea,
they have all one breath ; and man hath no pre-eminence above the
beasts : for all is vanity : all go unto one place ; all are of the dust,
and all turn to dust again.
Listen to pious Hezekiah :
Sheol cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee :
They that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.
The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day.
Listen to saintly Job :
Are not my days few ? cease then,'
And let me alone, that I may take comfort a little,
Before I go whence I shall not return,
To the land of darkness and of the shadow of death ;
A land of thick darkness, as darkness itself;
A land of the shadow of death, without any order,
And where the light is as darkness.
And so science, philosophy, instinct, nature, Old Testament
itself— all fail us at this supreme point of immortality. Ay, misera
ble comforters are ye all. Whither then shall we turn for certainty
here ?
To Jesus the Nazarene. Visit with me the family whom he
loved ; Mary and Martha and Lazarus of Bethany. Sorrow is
in the household : for Lazarus is dead, and been in his tomb four
days already. But Jesus has come from the Perea in order to com-

8 IMMORTALITY.
fort the sorrowing sisters. As soon as Martha catches glimpse of
him, she exclaims, with mingled sorrow and complaint and homage,
" Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died ; and even
now I know that, whatsoever thuu shalt ask of God, God will give
thee." Jesus saith unto her, " Thy brother shall rise again."
Martha, taught in the faith of the later Pharisees, answers, " I know
that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day." Jesus
said unto her, " / am the resurrection and the life : he that believeth
on me, though he die, yet shall he live : and whosoever liveth and be
lieveth on me shall never die. Believest thou this I' ' Magnificent
words these ; meaning more than tongue can recite or imagination
conceive. All we can do is to hint ; eternity is needed for the unfold
ing. May the Master of assemblies grant us his help as we venture
to ponder them !
" I am the Resurrection." Then Jesus Christ himself is the
energizing force of the resurrection. It is not enough then to say
that Jesus Christ raised Lazarus, and that he will yet raise all men ;
we must also say that Jesus Christ himself, in his own person and
character and work, is the resurrection-force itself. This is true for
all men. Being himself the Son of man — the archetypal Homo,
the representative of the essentials of human nature, the head and
epitome of mankind, the son of man — mankind ideally, potential
ly, virtually rose, when the Son of man rose. Listen to his own
annunciation :
The hour cometh, in which all that are in the tombs shall hear
his voice, and shall come forth ; they that have done good, unto the
resurrection of life ; and they that have done ill, unto the resurrec
tion of judgment.
But that Jesus Christ is himself the resurrection-force is es
pecially true for his Church. This is the very argument of his great
Apostle's memorable fifteenth chapter of his First Epistle to the
Corinthians :
Now hath Christ been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of
them that are asleep. For since by man came death, by man came

IMMORTALITY. 9
also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also
in Christ shall all be made alive. But each man in his own order :
Christ the firstfruit : then they that are Christ's at his coming.
Not that Jesus Christ was the first to rise from the dead : the
son of the widow of Zarephath, the daughter of Jairus, Lazarus,
and many others had been raised ; but they all died again : whereas
Christ having been raised from the dead dieth no more ; death
no more hath dominion over him. And in thus rising to die no
more he became, to use imagery suggested by the offering of the
first fruits in the Mosaic ritual, the pledge-sheaf of the resurrection
of those who sleep in him. Being himself the, head of the body
— the Church, and being himself the beginning, the firstborn from
the dead, he here, as everywhere else, has the pre-eminence. But
his people are not to rise irregularly, at fitful intervals. Each in his
own order : Christ the firstfruits ; then they that are Christ's at his
coming. Or as the Apostle had already expressed it to the Chris
tians of Thessalonica :
If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so ihem also
that are fallen asleep in Jesus, will God bring with him (that is,
when God brings back Jesus in the pomp of the second advent).
Then shall be fulfilled in the largest sense Christ's own parable
of the dying seed :
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a grain of wheat fall into
the earth and die, it abidethby itself alone ; but if it die, it beareth
much fruit.
Being himself the resurrection-embryo of his Church, and hav
ing fallen into the ground and died, it will be seen in the last great
day that he did not abide by himself alone, but has unfolded into
the glorious blossom and fruitage of a risen and transfigured hu
manity. " I am the resurrection and the life." Then Jesus Christ is
the source and means of the life as well as of the resurrection. In
fact, he is the resurrection because he is the life. For it is not the

10 IMMORTALITY.
body which gives life to itself; it is the life which takes on body,
and operates it. Listen to St. Paul :
If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth
in you, he that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall quicken
also your mortal bodies through his Spirit that dwelleth in you.
Because Jesus lives, we shall live also. As in Adam all die, so
also in Christ shall all be made alive.
And now mark very particularly what the New Testament means
by this great word " life." According to Je=us Christ and his apos
tles, life means not only physical life, such as man shares with the
animals : life also, and indeed chiefly, means moral life ; that spirit
ual, eternal life which man may share with God, and which God of
fers to mankind through and in his Son Jesus Christ. This, in an
eminent sense, is the teaching of the disciple whom Jesus loved.
Notice some examples :
Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall
never thirst ; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him
a well of water springing up unto eternal life ; Ye will not come to
me, that ye may have life ; I am the living bread which came down
out of heaven ; if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever ;
yea; and the bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the
world ; Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the
Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves ; He
that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I
will raise him up at the last day : As the living Father sent me, and I
live because of the Father ; so he that eateth me, he also shall live
because of me ; I came that they may have life, and may have it
abundantly ; My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they
follow me, and I give unto them eternal life ; I am the resurrection
and the life ; I am the way, and the truth, and the life ; Father, the
hour is come ; glorify thy Son, that the Son may glorify thee ; even as
thou gavest him authority over all flesh, that whatsoever thou hast
given him, to them he should give eternal life ; The Word of life ;
The life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and
declare unto you the life, the eternal life, which was with the Fa
ther, and was manifested unto us; This is the promise which he pro-

IMMOR TALITY. \ \
mised us, the life eternal ; The witness is this, that God gave unto
us eternal life, and this life is in his Son ; He that hath the Son hath
the life ; he that hath not the Son of God hath not the life ; To
him that overcometh, to him will I give to eat of the tree of life,
which is in the Paradise of God; The Lamb's book of life;. The
river of the water of life ; Blessed are they that do his command
ments (wash their robes), that they may have the right to come to
the tree of life, and may enter in by the gates into the city ; etc.
Jesus Christ then is the source, the means, the giver of eternal
life ; the life which is spiritual, blessed, immortal.
" He that believeth on Me, though he die, yet shall he
live." Then believing on Jesus Christ is the pivotal condition of
obtaining this spiritual, blessed, immortal life. And to this momen
tous truth the beloved disciple again gives most emphatic testimony.
Notice some examples :
As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
the Son of man be lifted up ; that whosoever believeth may in him
have eternal life ; For God so loved the world, that he gave his only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but
have eternal life ; He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life ;
but he that obeyeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of
God abideth on him ; This is the will of my Father, that every one
that beholdeth the Son, and believeth on him, should have eternal
life, and I will raise him up at the last day ; Verily, verily, I say un
to you, He that believeth hath eternal life ; He that believeth on me,
though he die, yet shall he live ; Whosoever liveth and believeth on
me shall never die; These are written that ye may believe that Jesus
is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye may have life
in his name ; etc.
Friends, mortal sickness will overtake us, as it overtook Lazarus
of Bethany ; weeping friends will try to console our bereaved kins
men, as weeping Jews tried to console the bereaved sisters ; we our
selves shall be borne to our graves, it may be, amid lamentations
and tears ; in those graves, with corruption for our father and the
worm for our mother and sister, we may lie it may be for ten thous-

12 IMMORTALITY.
and times ten thousand years. Yet if in this world we had believed
on him who nearly two milleniums ago said to Martha, " I am the re
surrection and the life," we shall still be, in the deepest sense of the
vast word, alive : for our life is the immortal life of the Son of God.
Belief then in Jesus Christ is the pivotal condition of securing the
gift of immortality.
" And whosoever liveth and believeth on Me shall never
die." This is the' same divine annunciation stated in converse
form. For those who believe on Jesus Christ as being himself the
resurrection and the life there is no death, at least in the real sense
of that awful word. Here again the beloved John is our emphatic
witness. Notice some examples :
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and
believeth on him that sent me, hath eternal life, and cometh not in
to judgment, but hath passed out of death into.life; I am the bread
of life ; Your fathers did eat the manna in the wilderness, and they
¦died ; This is the bread which cometh down out of heaven, that a
man may eat thereof, and not die ; Be thou faithful unto death, and
I will give thee the crown of life ; etc.
" Weep not," said Edward the Confessor when dying, " I shall
not die but live ; and as I leave the land of the dying I trust to see
the blessings of the Lord in the land of the living."
No, no, it is not dying
To go unto our God,
This gloomy earth forsaking,
Our journey homeward taking
Along the starry road.
Blessed then as well as holy is he who hath part in the 'first re
surrection, even the spiritual resurrection which is in Jesus Christ :
for over these sons of the resurrection the second death — the death of
!ife itself — hath no power. He that believes on Jesus Christ shall
never die.
" Believest thou this?" Alas, the question is as pertinent
to us as it was to Martha. On the one hand, there is on the part of
multitudes, even of those who are favorably disposed to Christianity,

IMMORTALITY. 23
a denial of the doctrine of personal immortality. Swept away by a
strange blending of science and fancy, they have come to the con
clusion that the only immortality possible is the immortality of man
kind as a whole ; individuals remerging hereafter in one General
Soul ; or if they believe in any personal immortality, it is only the
immortality of a sort of noble transmigration of souls, such as George
Eliot finely hints in her song of the Immortal Choir :
O may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds madi better by thair presence; live
In pulses stirred to generosity,
In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn
For miserable aims that end with self,
In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,
And with their mild persistence urge man's search
To vaster issues.
On the other hand, there is on the part of the Church itself
such a belief in the doctrine of the natural immortality of all men as
to amount to a virtual denial of the doctrine that immortality or eter
nal life is the gift of Christ alone. And so I repeat that the question
which the Son of man asked Martha the Son of man also asks our
selves :
Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life : he that
believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live : and whosoever
liveth and believeth on me shall never die. Believest thou this ?
Friend, do you believe what Jesus said to Martha? Do you be
lieve that the Son of man is the sole giver of eternal life, and that he
gives eternal life to none but his followers ? It is a fundamental ques
tion, lying at the very basis of Christian theology. It is the very
touch-stone of Christianity. It is the gospel itself; Christ's own
evangel ; his good news from above ; his glad tidings from the far
off country. Eternal life in Jesus Christ, blissful immortality in
and through the Son of man — this is Christ's own positive contribu
tion to the literature of immortality, to the philosophy of the here
after. Listen to his messenger Paul :

14 IMMORTALITY.
Saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to
our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was
.given us in Christ Jesus before times eternal, but hath now been
manifested by the appearing of our Saviour Christ Jesus, who abol ¦
ished death and brought life and immortality to light through the
gospel, whereunto I was appointed a preacher (herald), and an apos
tle, and a teacher.
Here, brethren of the ministry, is our blessed office. When we
come into our pulpits, it is not to soothe our listeners with brilliant
conjectures, hopeful surmises, elaborate attempts at demonstration
concerning immortality — that kind of preaching we leave to heathen
teachers and pagan philosophers in Christian lands. But when we
come into our pulpits, it is to give to our listeners positive, divine
information about the hereafter. It is our blessed privilege to say
to the bereaved Christian : " Jesus is the resurrection, and the life ;
he that believes on Jesus, though he die, yet shall he live ; and who
soever lives and believes on him shall never die." It is our blessed
privilege to say to the dying sinner : "The wages of sin is death;
but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." It
is our blessed privilege to announce to all men saints and sinners ;
" Our testimony is this, that God gave unto us eternal life, and this
life is in his Son." Dearly beloved, pardon me for the utterance, but
I must say it : I fear that in our preaching we do not make enough
of this pivotal doctrine of Christianity, this distinguishing revelation
of the gospel, this divine announcement from the Lord of the worlds,
to wit, that Jesus and Jesus only is the resurrection and the life. It
is precisely here that the Christian Religion comes out in most strik
ing contrast with heathen philosophies. What a noble man was
Socrates ! How sublimely he died ! Yet that sublime death was in
expressibly mournful because of his own painful uncertainty concern
ing the hereafter.. Listen to him as about to drink of the fatal hem
lock he bade adieu to his friends :
The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways. I go
to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows.

IMMORTALITY. 15
How much sublimer Paul's death, because of its joyous certain
ty: Listen to him as about to bend his neck beneath Nero's ax he
writes to his son Timothy :
I am already being offered (poured out as a drink-offering), and
the time of my departure is come. I have fought the good fight, I
have finished the course, I have kept the faith : henceforth there is
laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the
righteous judge, shall give to me at that day : and not only to me,
but also to all them that have loved his appearing.
O friends, when storm-tossed by atheistic arguments, material
istic doubts, philosophical speculations, satanic assaults ; do we some
times with Simon Peter ask wearily, " Lord, to whom shall we go ?"
Happy we, if with Simon Peter we can confidently add : "Lord,
thou hast the words of eternal life!" All hail to thee then, thou
Man of Nazareth, thou Evangelist of Immortality !
Hail thou Lord of earth and heaven !
Praise to thee by both be given ;
Thee, we greet triumphant now,
Hail ! the resurrection thou !
When Adam lay at the point of death (so runs one of the legends
of mediaeval Christendom), he sent his son Seth to the gates of
Paradise that he might obtain access to the Tree of Life, and bring
some of the oil of mercy which flowed from its twigs, to anoint him
for his burial. That oil Seth was not permitted to get. But the
cherub who guarded the gates of Eden gave him a slip from the life-
giving Tree ; and with this he returned, and planted it on his father's
grave at Golgotha. There it took root, and grew, and became a
tree. From that tree came the wood of the wand which Moses so
often miraculously wielded ; also the rod which budded in token of
Jehovah's sanction of Aaron's priesthood ; also the pole on which
Moses lifted up the brazen serpent ; and finally the cross of Calvary
itself. Of course, it is but a legend. Thank God, it conveys a pro
found truth ; that truth is this : Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the

16 IMMORTALITY.
Son of man, is the true Tree of Life. He came that we might have
life, and that we might have life aboundingly. Out of Christ death;
in Christ life : this is the august teaching of him who, by his own
advent, has abolished death, and brought life and immortality to
light ; and thus announced a very gospel. He who touches Christ's
cross, and none but he, lives for ever. Or to draw a figure from
arithmetic : Jesus Christ is himself the separatrix between human
powers and human zeros ; our destiny depends on our position in
relation to him, whether we are on his right hand or on his left,
whether we are for him or against him. All praise to redeeming
Grace, the way to the true Tree of Life is now open. O ye mourn
ers, going about the streets, because man goeth to his long home ;
sorrow not as those heathen or those skeptics ¦ sorrow who have no
hope : for if you believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so
them also that are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with him. O
ye weary, plodding, dying ones, yet panting for immortal youth ;
you shall not find it where medieval alchemists wearily sought for it in
alembic and crucible, nor where you are looking for it in the chase
after wealth, or power, or pleasure, or scholarship, or fame. Jesus
the Nazarene — the sufferer on Pilate's cross and the conqueror on
Olivet's cloud — he only is the true Elixir Vitas ; he alone is the hea
venly nectar and ambrosia of the true immortality. None but he
who eats the flesh of Christ's personality and drinks the blood of
Christ's character has eternal life ; for Christ's flesh is the true food
and Christ's character is the true drink. Heaven grant that as all
of us have died in the first Adam ; so all of us may be made alive in
the second Adam ! Washing our robes in the blood of the Lamb,
we shall have right to the Tree of Life, and enter through the gates
into the City.

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