'The Grave! What of the Grave? I am the Resurrection!
'I am the Resurrection and the Life; he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.'
He felt that it was a great thing--a very great thing--to be able to save those He loved by dying for them.
III
'I am the Resurrection!'--those were the words that Sydney Carton saw written on land and on water, on earth and on sky, on the night on which he made up his mind to die. 'I am the Resurrection!' They were the words that he had heard read beside his father's grave. They are the words that we echo, in challenge and defiance, over all our graves. The rubric of the Church of England requires its ministers to greet the dead at the entrance to the churchyard with the words: 'I am the Resurrection and the Life;' and, following the same sure instinct, the ministers of all the other Churches have adopted a very similar practice. The earth seems to be a garden of graves. We speak of those who have passed from us as 'the great majority.' We appear to be conquered. But it is all an illusion.
'O Grave!' we ask, in every burial service, 'where is thy victory?' And the question answers itself. The victory does not exist. The struggle is not yet ended. 'I am the Resurrection!'
'I am the Life!'--that is what all the echoes were saying as Sydney Carton, cherishing a great heroic purpose in his heart, paced the deserted streets that night.
'I am the Life! I am the Life!'
'He that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live!'
'Whosoever believeth in Me shall never die!'