BEAUTY FOR ASHES. 



analogy of it. The fair blossom from the seed, the 

 winged insect from the chrysalis these common fam- 

 iliar illustrations are examples of rejuvenescence or 

 development, and not of resurrection. These living 

 things do not spring from previously dead and decom- 

 posed forms, but are simply the outcome of a latent life 

 that has never for one moment been interrupted ; and 

 before we can use such analogies as arguments in favour 

 of the resurrection, we must be shown some germ of 

 animal or vegetable life, ground into dust and scattered 

 by the winds, and entering into the composition of 

 other bodies, whose materials have, nevertheless, been 

 gathered together anew, and its old life restored unim- 

 paired. But, of such a process in nature there has 

 never been a single instance. There has never been, 

 in all the physical world, a single example of life raised 

 from actual death; all its revivifying processes attach 

 only to things that are alive and representative of life. 



But the Christian religion assures us that for the 

 ashes of our dead we shall yet have immortal beauty. 

 The truth of the resurrection is the new fact upon 

 which Christianity rests its claims ; which Christianity 

 asserts to be itself a Gospel. It is undoubtedly true 

 that we once woke from nothing to consciousness ; and 

 Revelation asserts that this mystery and miracle will 

 be repeated, and in a higher form, from the nothing- 

 ness of the grave. This is a truth in beautiful accord- 

 ance with all the natural instincts and longings of our 

 souls. Our deepest heart affections are the helpers of 

 our highest hopes, and the instinctive guarantee of a 



