4. And so we are prepared--you see now why I chose that particular text--we are prepared for _the great revelation when it comes_. Even science has prepared us. This great instinct of the soul, that it will live again, has prepared us. Our belief in a good GOD prepared us. We were all ready to hear it, and at last it comes from heaven. "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." And now we have got it. It has been all led up to; we were all prepared for it. We could not have been certain till we were told it by One who came from heaven. This is the Christian religion. It is no miserable half-and-half Gospel about a good man that once lived. That view of JESUS CHRIST has nothing to do with Christianity. The SON of GOD came Himself from heaven. That is the Christian religion. And, having come from heaven, He knows what is in heaven. And He speaks with the certainty of knowledge: "In My FATHER'S house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you." And "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." And, mark you, to prove it, to get the whole truth this morning, not only for your own selves, but for the mourners who abound in our midst, and must abound more and more as the weeks pass--to prove this doctrine that He rose Himself from the dead, we must have the full gospel of Easter. Alas! a new theology has been whittling away the faith of some in this country. But the old doctrine of Easter was this, "David saw corruption, but He whom GOD raised up saw no corruption." And as He died and was buried, so He rose again. Why do we keep Sunday, do you suppose, if there was no Resurrection? Why not keep as the sacred day Friday, if nothing happened on Sunday? If CHRIST did not rise on that day, why do we have at our Eucharists the Body broken and the Blood shed? How could any people enshrine in their Eucharistic service the tokens of a shameful death unless the body buried had risen again? How did the Cross get to the top of the dome of St. Paul's? Why should we have the old gallows erected over the finest city in the world, unless it was the symbol, not only of death, but of glorious resurrection? Therefore, we have not got to put our reason behind our backs in believing that He who said "I am the resurrection and the life" raised Himself from the grave. It is with our reason as well as with our hearts that we say, in answer to the question, "If a man die, shall he live again?" "Yes, thank GOD, he has never really died."