a man long who does not from his heart love it.  First comes a sensation of restraint, and then comes a murmuring of the heart; and last, there comes the rising of passion in its giant might, made desperate by restraint.  That is the law giving strength to sin.

And therefore brethren, if all we know of God be this, that He has made laws, and that it is terrible to break them; if all our idea of religion be this, that it is a thing of commands and hindrances—­Thou shalt, and thou shalt not; we are under the law, and there is no help for it.  We must shrink from the encounter with death.

 We pass to our second subject—­Faith conquering in death.

And, before we enter upon this topic, there are two general remarks that we have to make.  The first is, The elevating power of faith.  There is nothing in all this world that ever led man on to real victory but faith.  Faith is that looking forward to a future with something like certainty, that raises man above the narrow feelings of the present.  Even in this life he is a greater man, a man of more elevated character, who is steadily pursuing a plan that requires some years to accomplish, than he who is living by the day.  Look forward but ten years, and plan for it, live for it; there is something of manhood, something of courage required to conquer the thousand things that stand in your way.  And therefore it is, that faith, and nothing but faith, gives victory in death.  It is that elevation of character which we get from looking steadily and for ever forward, till eternity becomes a real home to us, that enables us to look down upon the last struggle, and the funeral, and the grave, not as the great end of all, but only as something that stands between us and the end.  We are conquerors of death when we are able to look beyond it.

Our second remark is for the purpose of fixing special attention upon this, that ours is not merely to be victory, it is to be victory through Christ “Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  Victory brethren, mere victory over death is no unearthly thing.  You may get it by infidelity.  Only let a man sin long enough, and desperately enough to shut judgment altogether out of his creed, and then you have a man who can bid defiance to the grave.  It was so that our country’s greatest infidel historian met death.  He quitted the world without parade and without display.  If we want a specimen of victory apart from Christ, we have it on his death-bed.  He left all this strange world of restlessness, calmly, like an unreal show that must go to pieces, and he himself an unreality departing from it.  A sceptic can be a conqueror in death.

Or again, mere manhood may give us a victory.  He who has only learned not to be afraid to die, has not learned much.  We have steel and nerve enough in our hearts to dare anything.  And after