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Witness

<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> It was all very neat and beautiful in the little, third-story back room. The gas-stove and other things had disappeared behind the calico curtain. Before it stood the small white coffin, with the beautiful boy lying as if he were asleep, the roses strewn about him, and a mass of valley-lilies at his feet. The girl, white and calm, sat beside him, one hand resting across the casket protectingly. Three or four women from the house had brought in chairs, and some of the neighbors had slipped in shyly, half in sympathy, half in curiosity. The minister was already there, talking in a low tone in the hall with the undertaker. The girl looked up when Courtland entered and thanked him for the flowers with her eyes. The women huddled in the back of the room watched him curiously and let no flicker of an eyelash pass without notice. They were like hungry birds ready to pounce on any scrap of sentiment or suspicion that might be dropped in their sight. The doctor came stolidly in and went and stood beside the coffin, looking down for a minute as if he were burning remedial incense in his soul, and then turned away with the frank tears running down his tired, honest face. He sat down beside Courtland. The stillness and the strangeness in the bare room were awful. It was only bearable to look toward the peace in the small, white, dead face; for the calm on the face of the sister cut one to the heart. The minister and the undertaker stepped into the room, and then it seemed to Courtland as if One other entered also. He did not look up to see. He merely had that sense of Another. It stayed with him and relieved the tension in the room. Then the voice of the minister, clear, gentle, ringing, triumphant, stole through the room, and out into the hall, even down through the landings, where were huddled some of the neighbors come to listen: "And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me: Write—Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth ... But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.... For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words." Courtland listened attentively. The words were utterly new to him. If he had heard them before on the few occasions when he had perforce attended funerals, they had never entered into his consciousness. They seemed almost uncannily to answer the desolating questions of his heart. He listened with painful attention. Most remarkable statements! "But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept!" He glanced instinctively around where it seemed that the Presence had entered. He could not get away from the feeling that He stood just to the left of the minister there, with bowed head, like a great one whose errand and presence there were about to be explained. It was as if He had come to take the little child away with Him. Courtland remembered the girl's prayer the night the child died: "Go with little Aleck and see that he is not afraid till he gets safe home." He glanced up at her calm, tearless face. She was drinking in the words. They seemed to give strength under her pitiless sorrow. "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death!" Courtland heard the words with a shock of relief. Here had he been under the depression of death—death everywhere and always! threatening every life and every project of earth! And now this confident sentence looking toward a time when death should be no more! It came as something utterly new and original that there would be a time when no one should, ever fear death again because death would be put out of existence! He had to look at it and face it as something to be recognized and thought out, a thing that was presenting itself for him to believe; as if the Christ Himself were having it read just for him alone to hear; as if those huddled curious women and the tearful doctor, and the calm-faced girl were not there at all, only Christ and the little dead child waiting to walk into another, realer life, and Courtland, there on the threshold of another world to learn a great truth. "But some will say, How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?" Courtland looked up, startled. The very thought that was dawning in his mind! The child, presently to lie under the ground and return to dust! How could there be a resurrection of that little body after years, perhaps? How could there be hope for that wide-eyed sister with the sorrowful soul? "Thou fool, that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain." He listened through the wonderful nature-picture, dimly understanding the reasoning; on to the words: "So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body." He looked at the child lying there among the lilies, those spirituelle blossoms so ethereal and perfect that they almost seem to have a soul. Was that the thought, then? The little child laid under the earth like the bulb of the lily, to see corruption and decay, would come forth, even as the spirit of the lilies came up out of the darkness and mold and decay of their tomb under-ground, and burst into the glory of their beautiful blossoms, the perfection of what the ugly brown bulb was meant to be. All the possibilities come to perfection! no accident or stain of sin to mar the glorified character! a perfect soul in a perfect, glorified body! The wonder of the thought swelled within him, and sent a thrill through him with the minister's voice as he read: "So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory. O death where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!" If Courtland had been asked before he came there whether he believed in a resurrection he might have given a doubtful answer. During the four years of his college life he had passed through various stages of unbelief along with a good many of his fellow-students. With them he had made out a sort of philosophy of life which he supposed he believed. It was founded partly upon what he wanted to believe and partly upon what he could not believe, because he had never been able to reason it out. Up to this time even his experience with the Presence had not touched this philosophy of his which he had constructed like a fancy scaffolding inside of which he expected to fashion his life. The Presence and his partial surrender to its influence had been a matter of the heart, and until now it had not occurred to him that his allegiance to the Christ was incompatible with his former philosophy. The doctrine of the resurrection suddenly stood before him as something that must be accepted along with the Christ, or the Christ was not the Christ! Christ was the resurrection if He was at all! Christ had to be that, had to have conquered death, or He would not have been the Christ; He would not have been God humanized for the understanding of men unless He could do God-like things. He was not God if He could not conquer death. He would not be a man's Christ if He could not come to man in his darkest hour and conquer his greatest enemy; put Himself up against death and come out victorious! A great fact had been revealed to Courtland: There was a resurrection of the dead, and Christ was the hope of that resurrection! It was as if he had just met Christ face to face and heard Him say so; had it all explained to him fully and satisfactorily. He doubted if he could tell the professor in the Biblical Literature class how, because perhaps he hadn't seen the Christ that way; but others understood! That white, strained face of the girl was not hopeless. There was the light of a great hope in her eyes; they could see afar off over the loneliness of the years that were to be, up to the time when she should meet the little brother again, glorified, perfected, stainless! It suddenly came to Courtland to think how Stephen Marshall would look with that glorified body. The last glimpse he had had of him standing above the burning pit of the theater with the halo of flames about his head had given him a vision. A great gladness came up within him that some day he would surely see Stephen Marshall again, grasp his hand, make him know how he repented his own negative part in the persecution that had led him to his death; make him understand how in dying he had left a path of glory behind and given life to Paul Courtland. In the prayer that followed the minister seemed as though he were talking with dear familiarity to One whom he knew well. The young man, listening, marveled that any dared come so near, and found himself longing for such assurance and comradeship. They took the casket out to a quiet place beyond the city, where the little body might rest until the sister wished to take it away. As they stood upon that bleak hillside, dotted over with white tombstones, the looming city in the distance off at the right, Courtland recognized the group of spreading buildings that belonged to-his university. He marveled at the closeness of life and death in this world. Out there the busy city, everybody tired and hustling to get, to learn, to enjoy; out here everybody lying quiet, like the corn of wheat in the ground, waiting for the resurrection time, the call of God to come forth in beauty! What a difference it would make in the working, and getting, and hustling, and learning, and enjoying if everybody remembered how near the lying-quiet time might be! How unready some might be to lie down and feel that it was all over! How much difference it must make what one had done with the time over there in the city, when the stopping time came! How much better it would be if one could live remembering the Presence, always being aware of its nearness! To live Christ! What would that mean? Was he ready to surrender a thought like that? The minister, it appeared, had a very urgent call in another direction. He must take a trolley that passed the gate of the cemetery and go off at once. It fell to Courtland to look after the girl, for the doctor had not been able to leave his practice to take the long ride to the cemetery. She, it seemed, did not hear what they said, nor care who went with her. Courtland led her to the carriage and put her in. "I suppose you will want to go directly back to the house?" he said. She turned to him as if she were coming out of a trance. She caught her breath and gave him one wild, beseeching look, crying out with something like a sob: "Oh, how can I ever go back to that room now?" And then her breath seemed suddenly to leave her and she fell back against the seat as if she were lifeless. He sprang in beside her, took her in his arms, resting her head against his shoulder, loosened her coat about her throat, and chafed her cold hands, drawing the robes closely about her slender shoulders, but she lay there white and without a sign, of life. He thought he never had seen anything so ghastly white as her face. The driver came around and offered a bottle of brandy. They forced a few drops between her teeth, and after a moment there came a faint flutter of her eyelids. She came to herself for just an instant, looked about her, realized her sorrow once more, and dropped off into oblivion again. "She's in a bad way!" murmured the driver, looking worried. "I guess we'd better get her somewheres. I don't want to have no responsibility. My chief's gone back to the city, and the other man's gone across the to West Side. I reckon we'd better go on and stop at some hospital if she don't come to pretty soon." The driver vanished and the carriage started at a rapid pace. Courtland sat supporting his silent charge in growing alarm, alternately chafing her hands and trying to force more brandy between her set lips. He was relieved when at last the carriage stopped again and he recognized the stone buildings of one of the city's great hospitals. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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