The sublime reflections with which Cyprian concludes his treatise _De Mortalitate_ nobly express the grand consoling thoughts which sustained the primitive Christians, and which sustain God’s saints in every age. “We are but pilgrims and strangers here below,” he exclaims, “let us then welcome the day that gives to us the joys of heaven. What exile longs not for his native land? Our true native land is paradise. A large and loving company expects us there. O the bliss of those celestial realms where no fear of dying enters! There the glorious choir of the apostles, the exulting company of the prophets, the countless army of the martyrs, await us. To them let us eagerly hasten. Let us long to be with them the sooner, that we may the sooner be with CHRIST.” What a striking contrast to these holy hopes is the pagans’ blankness of despair concerning the future. Compared with this assurance of a blissful immortality, how cold and cheerless is their shadowy elysium, 435 their unsubstantial visions of the spirit-world; how terrible the gloomy Acherontian lake, dark Lethe’s stream, and Styx, and fiery Phlegethon. Like a gleam of heaven’s sunshine in a benighted age are these rude inscriptions of the early Christians. Sublimer is their lofty hope, reaching forward beyond this world, and laying hands of faith upon the eternal verities of the world to come, than the imperishable renown of classic sages, or the Roman poet’s vaunting boast of earthly immortality--_Non omnis moriar_. Even the high philosophy of Greece and the noble stoicism of the Roman mind afford no consolation to the soul brought face to face with the solemn mystery of death. A forced and sullen submission to the inevitable is all that they can teach. They shed no light upon the world beyond the grave, DOMVS AETERNA--“An eternal home,”[711] and SOMNO AETERNALI--“In eternal sleep,” are written on their tombs, frequently accompanied by an inverted torch, the emblem of despair. To them death is an unsolved and insoluble problem. Their loftiest reasonings lack authority to satisfy the mind. It is the gospel of Christ alone which dispels the awful shadows of the tomb, plants the flower of hope in the very ashes of the grave, and brings life and immortality to light; which appeases the soul-hunger of mankind, and meets the yearning cry of the human heart.