Our Saviour says of life: 'I have power to lay it down, and power to take it again.' We have not such power in our own hands; but our Lord holds it for us, so that our position is independent of the world, and of the power of evil, just as His was; and as in His case He did resume more than He laid down, so will be given to us by the same Almighty hand more than any creature has to surrender for the highest objects of existence.

Such doctrine, I may add, is not, in its essence, merely Christian: it has been the common sentiment of our race, that one of the highest privileges of our being is to sacrifice ourselves, in various modes and degrees, for the good of our fellow men; and those who cheerfully do this, even if it be in the actual surrender of life, are esteemed blessed, as they are also placed above others in the ranks of honorable fame, and held to be secure of the final rewards of a heavenly state.