That being so, what does death matter? 'O, death!' we cry, 'where is thy sting?' and once more the question answers itself.
'O Death, where is thy sting?'--'I am the Life!'
'O Grave, where is thy victory?'--'I am the Resurrection!'
The Life and the Resurrection! 'I am the Resurrection and the Life!'
The text that he saw in every sight, and heard in every sound, made all the difference to Sydney Carton. The end soon came, and this is how Dickens tells the story.
The tumbrils arrive at the guillotine. The little seamstress is ordered to go first. 'They solemnly bless each other. The thin hand does not tremble as he releases it. Nothing worse than a sweet, bright constancy is in the patient face. She is gone. The knitting women, who count the fallen heads, murmur twenty-two. And then--
'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.'
They said of him about the city that night that it was the peacefullest man's face ever beheld there. Many added that he looked sublime and prophetic.
I am the Resurrection! O Grave, where is thy victory?
I am the Life! O Death, where is thy sting?