Page:Letters on the Human Body (John Clowes).djvu/220

200 benefactor? For with such a Christian, what is his separation from a mortal and material body, but like the putting off a filthy and tattered garment that he may put on a robe of glory and immortality? What also is his separation from this lower world of sin, and sorrow, and shadow, but his introduction to the higher world of righteousness, and peace, and substance? What, again, is the adieu which he bids to the society of friends, to the gratifications of sense, to worldly fame, property and dignity, but the welcome sounded in his ears by his angelic associates, attended with the delightful assurance, that his true friends are still with him, and that gratifications, fame, property and dignity, by death only change their names, from earthly to heavenly, from natural to spiritual, from temporal to eternal? Such then is the bright aspect of bodily death presented to the view of the living soul of every Christian.

And now, my dear Sir, I have only to beg leave to observe further on this very interesting subject, that both you, and I, and every other human being, are compelled, by the most absolute necessity, to make our choice, whether we will look at bodily death with the eyes of a living soul, or with those of a dead soul, and that our judgment will be determined accordingly. In ease, therefore, the dead soul influences our