you or to me, theologically or intellectually, whether that part of us which we call our "spirit" has its local habitation inside us, or outside, or in no locality at all? Is it not enough to recognize that we have powers of acting, loving, trusting, and believing, and to feel certain that God intends these powers to be developed and never to perish? Yet I remember that a friend of mine was shocked, and almost appalled, when I avowed ignorance as to the locality of my spirit. He seemed to think I might as well have no spirit at all, if it could not prove its respectability by giving its name and address!
For my part I am now quite certain of Christ's spiritual Resurrection, and in that conviction I am far happier and far more trustful than when I at first mechanically accepted upon authority and evidence the belief in the Resurrection of Christ's body, and subsequently strove to retain that belief, against the testimony of my intelligence and my conscience. I think you also will find, as years go on, when it becomes your lot to stand by the grave into which friend after friend is lowered, that a heartfelt conviction of the spiritual Resurrection of Christ affords more comfort to you at such moments than your old belief—based largely upon historical evidence, and brain-felt rather than heart-felt—in His physical Resurrection. For the former unites us with Christ, the latter separates us from Christ. We none of us expect that the material and tangible bodies of our friends will rise from the dead in the flesh without "seeing corruption;" but we do trust that they shall rise as "spiritual bodies" over whom death shall have no power. This trust is confirmed by the belief that Christ rose as we trust they shall hereafter rise. If, therefore, Christ rose a material body from the grave—that stirs no hope in us. But if, while His body remained in the grave, His spirit rose triumphant to the throne of God, then we see a hope indeed that may suit our case and
