March. 1944
85
Jesus said: "I am the resurrection, . and the life" (John 11:25).
By HOWARD W . FERRIN*
You say: “How can I be g l a d again? The r e* is nothing to swallow up weakness and failure and suffering and loss” . . . But there is! . . . With your hand in Christ’s, you can pass joyfully. . . .
Through Death —To Glory
B ENEATH Westminster Abbey is an old crypt which, for centur ies, was used as the burial place of the early kings. It is related that one day a visitor who had wan dered into this vault was locked in. The caretakers were busy, and no one heard the muffled voice which began to cry from the crypt, or the muffled blows which began to beat upon its oaken doors. The afternoon passed away. What that imprisoned man suf fered as the realization grew upon him that he was buried alive, who can know?
Before turning the key, the janitor paused and listened. He thought he heard dull blows, faint and f£tr away —a sound as of stifled, agonizing cries. He listened more intently, and was seized with the horrible thought: “Someone is locked inside!” Hasten ing to the crypt, he threw open the heavy door, and held his lantern up so he could see. The buried man had fallen senseless upon the stone floor. He was rescued just in time to save his reason. Were it not for the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we all would have been like that •imprisoned man, helplessly [ Continued on Page 91]
At the usual hour, the janitor made his evening round before closing the building for the night. The entombed man heard him as he came near, then retreated, came near again, then, fi nally receded, the footsteps growing fainter and fainter, and at length dying away in the distance. What imagination can conceive his agony? The prisoner cried louder. He1 dashed his body wildly against the solid door, but in vain. Then he thought he heard the dis tant entrance doors creak on their hinges, and the key pushed into the great iron lock. In a moment more the vast tomb would be closed for the night.
*President of the Providence Bible Institute, Providence, R. I,
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