He will descend from heaven with a shout of command. He will pass it on to the archangel. The archangel will pass it to the angel who is called the "trump of God." He will cause a sound, a blast, an utterance of power at which the doors of graves of every sort shall open outward, every secret hiding place of the purchased dead will be revealed and the sacred dust will bloom with life; for, in the body of every regenerated soul there is planted the germ of the new body; and just as the buried seed is linked by the unseen air to the fructifying sun in heaven and as at a given moment we call the germination is quickened and at last comes forth in new form yet the same essential embodiment as when planted; so, the regeneration nucleus of the new body is held by the Holy Spirit (of which the air is the symbol) to the risen, glorified body of the Son of God in heaven; and no matter what may befall the body in which it was buried it will abide to that hour we call the resurrection and transfiguration and at the shout, the voice and action of the trump of God will come forth in the glow of unfolded and eternal beauty as the sheath, the house, the home, the perfect dwelling place, the royal robe of the souls the Lord shall bring with Him; while the living shall flash forth in the same immortality and glory. Yes! the dust of death shall bloom and mortality shall put on immortality at the Coming of the Lord. And I for one want Him to come. I have loved ones waiting within the gates of the upper city for that morning hour. I have one there my heart in these days yearns to see. But a short time ago death with rude and sudden hand snatched from me my only child, the son of my heart; a son grown to splendid young manhood; a son who loved me, reverenced me, believed as I believe, a member of my own Church, baptized by my own hand in early days: a son on whom I hoped to lean in peace if the shadows should deepen round me ere my Lord might come. And in the going of that beloved son of mine the light of day has seemed at times to fail, the stars of heaven have grown so dim and far away I think of them often as tears of distant eyes that pity me. There are moments when I crave him as a hungry man does food and as a thirsty man in desert ways yearns for a draught of limpid waters. I have a hurt here in the heart of me no medicine of earth can cure; but because I know when the Lord comes this son of mine shall rise and I shall meet him and the old glad life renew in larger, richer, fuller measure; and because I know there is only the sound of the trump between me and that longed-for hour; that the door of heaven is always ajar and my Lord may come at any moment and bring us to the hand clasp and the love embrace again, I bear my hurt, I rest in the Lord and preach this blessed hope to other hearts that ache--the Coming of Him who is the resurrection and the life and whose last earthward utterance to His Church is: "Behold, I come quickly." IV