“I’ll not kill a butterfly again,” said Giles.
“I never see one fluttering in the sun,” continued Ella, “without thinking of those lines:—
‘Thou hast burst from thy prison,
Bright child of the air!
Like a spirit just risen
From its mansion of care!’”
“That sounds very pretty,” said Giles; “but I don’t understand it.”
“It is not very difficult to explain,” replied Ella. “The butterfly teaches us a joyful lesson; it is what is called a type of immortality! You see the lowly caterpillar crawling over a leaf,—it cannot raise itself towards the sky,—it cannot leave the earth; in this it is like what we are now. Then, as you know, it seems to die; it is wrapped up in its little covering, and there it lies without motion or feeling—that is like what we must be.”
“Ah! I see; when we are in our coffins, dead and buried,” cried Robert. “But the bright butterfly soon bursts from the dark case, and we do not rise from our graves.”
“We shall,” replied Ella earnestly; “we all shall rise again. No longer prisoners bound to earth, no longer creeping on amidst trials and sorrows, but free, happy, glorious, shining in the beams of the Sun of Righteousness. ‘For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised’ (1 Cor. xv. 52). Why should we fear death—why should we dread being laid in the cold tomb? When we think of the hope set before us, well may we cry, ‘O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?’” (1 Cor. xv. 55).