'Are you dying for him?' she whispered.
'For him--and his wife and child. Hush! Yes!'
'Oh, you will let me hold your brave hand, stranger?'
'Hush! Yes, my poor sister; to the last!'
Nobody has ever read A Tale of Two Cities without feeling that this was the moment of Sydney Carton's supreme triumph.
'It is,' he said--and they are the last words in the book--'it is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done!'
He had never tasted a joy to be compared with this. He was able to save those he loved by dying for them!
That is precisely the joy of the Cross! That was the light that shone upon the Saviour's path through all the darkness of the world's first Easter. That is why, when He took the bread and wine--the emblems of His body about to be broken and His blood about to be shed--He gave thanks. It is that--and that alone--that accounts for the fact that He entered the Garden of Gethsemane with a song upon His lips. It was for the joy that was set before Him that He endured the Cross, despising its shame!
'Death!' He said. 'What of Death? I am the Life, not only of Myself, but of all who place their hands in Mine!