But when death comes suddenly to people in the prime of life, who but yesterday were as busy and as lively as any of us, and we are face to face with death, and see the same face we knew in life--not wasted, not worn, young and lusty as ever, seemingly asleep,--something at our heart as well as in our eyes, tells us that there is more than sleep in that strange, sharp, quiet smile--and we know in spite of ourselves that the man is dead. And then strange questions rise in us, "Is that he whom we knew? that still piece of clay, waiting only a few days before it returns to its dust? It is the face of him, the shape of him, it is what we knew him by. It is the very same body of which when we met it on the road we said, "He is coming." And yet is it _he_? Where is _he_ himself? Can _he_ hear us? Can _he_ see us? Does _he_ remember us as we remember _him_? Surely he must. He cannot be gone away--there he lies still on that bed before us!" And then we are ready to say to ourselves, "It must be a mistake, a dream. He cannot be dead. He will wake. We shall meet him to-morrow in his old place, about his old work. _He_ dead? Impossible! Impossible to believe that we shall never see him again--never any more till we too die!" And then when such thoughts come over us, we cannot help going on to say, "What is this death? this horrible thing which takes husbands from their wives, and children from their parents, and those who love from those who love them? What is it? How came this same death loose in the world? What right has it here, under the bright sun, among the pleasant fields, this cruel, pitiless death, destroying God's handi-work, God's likeness, just as it is growing to its prime of beauty and usefulness?" And then--there--by the bedside of the young at least, we do feel that death must be God's enemy--that it is a hateful, cruel, evil thing--accursed in the sight of a loving, life-giving God, as much as it is hated by poor mortal man. And then, we feel, there must be something wrong between man and God. Man must be fallen and corrupt, must be out of his right place and state in some way or other, or this horrible death would not have got power over us! What right has death in the world, if man has not sinned or fallen?