You cannot
help going to it. But it must be like this world, seeing the only
way to prepare for it is to do the thing God gives us to do."
"Aren't you afraid of death, Mr. Grant?"
"No, I am not. Why should I fear the best thing that, in its time,
can come to me? Neither will you be afraid when it comes. It is not
the dreadful thing it looks."
"Why should it look dreadful if it is not dreadful?"
"That is a very proper question. It looks dreadful, and must look
dreadful, to everyone who cannot see in it that which alone makes
life not dreadful. If you saw a great dark cloak coming along the
road as if it were round somebody, but nobody inside it, you would
be frightened--would you not?"
"Indeed I should. It would be awful!"
"It would. But if you spied inside the cloak, and making it come
towards you, the most beautiful loving face you ever saw--of a man
carrying in his arms a little child--and saw the child clinging to
him, and looking in his face with a blessed smile, would you be
frightened at the black cloak?"
"No; that would be silly."
"You have your answer! The thing that makes death look so fearful is
that we do not see inside it. Those who see only the black cloak,
and think it is moving along of itself, may well be frightened; but
those who see the face inside the cloak, would be fools indeed to be
frightened! Before Jesus came, people lived in great misery about
death; but after he rose again, those who believed in him always
talked of dying as falling asleep; and I daresay the story of
Lazarus, though it was not such a great thing after the rising of
the Lord himself, had a large share in enabling them to think that
way about it.
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