4.--If there is one increasing purpose through the ages, if there is development from lower to higher, from simple to complex, it is impossible to bound our vision with the grave. If personality has been attained, it is incredible that the gain of painful ages will be thrown away. "_Now_ are we the Sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be." The "forward-looking" habit has not been acquired for naught. So far is Science from giving demonstrative evidence against immortality that it actually presents some considerations in its favour. The reasonableness and the beneficence of creation protest against the extinction of men by death. WHAT CHRIST SAYS. The candle-lights of history, philosophy and science cast a cumulative radiance upon the problem of life after death. They show that it is harder not to believe than to believe in immortality. But we need the light of the Sun. We need the demonstration of the power of an endless life. This we have in the Risen Christ. Christ brought into perfect light those truths about God and man, of which mankind had dim intuitions. By His Resurrection Christ abolished death (i.e., deprived it of force and power) and brought life and immortality to light (i.e., gives certainty, richness and power to the hope of immortal life). 1.--Christ has given _certainty_ to the instinctive longing for immortality. For the shadow, He has given substance; for dimness, light; for hope, assurance. Although this hope has been virtually universal and inextinguishable, yet apart from Christ it has never become a certainty. Though historian, philosopher, poet, lover and saint have their own special arguments for the Hereafter, it is Christ Himself Who is the sure Light both of this world and of that which is to come. He has turned this hope into a full and glorious assurance. HOW HAS HE DONE THIS? (_a_) _By His teaching_.--Two things about mankind Christ took for granted--sinfulness and immortality. He did not argue about this life beyond; He took it for granted. No part of His teaching is explicable on the supposition that all ends at the tomb. His basis for our immortality is not our instinct but the character of God. On the bosom of God's Fatherhood rests man's immortality. If God is our Father and loves us as His children, then we are His and He is ours _forever_. Death cannot break this tie of life and love which binds us to Him; it cannot rob Him of His child. That God cannot be the God of the dead, but of the living, is axiomatic. His personal relations are real and are eternal. The Christian faith is sufficient to give us certainty and comfort concerning our departed. We are assured that the blessed dead are in His safe keeping and through Him we are one with them in a union which will one day be consummated in everlasting reunion and communion. Our Christian watchwords are enough--"love in absence, trust in silence, faith in reunion."