Then go to sleep, poor, old, hard-worked body, the apostle seems to say, and Jesus will wake thee up in good time, and thou shalt be "made life to the body of His glory, according to the working whereby he subdues all things unto Himself."
Let us not be charged with pushing the Scripture simile too far, when we hint that it illustrates the different feelings with which different persons regard the act of dying. When we are sleepy we covet the pillow and the couch. Even so do we see aged servants of God, who have finished up their life-work, and many a suffering invalid, racked with incurable pains, who honestly long to die. They are sleepy for the rest of the grave and the home beyond it. For Christ here, with Christ yonder, is the highest instinct of the Christian heart. The noble missionary, Judson, phrased it happily when he said: "I am not tired of my work, neither am I tired of the world; yet, when Christ calls me home, I shall go with the gladness of a boy bounding away from school." He wanted to toil for souls until he proved sleepy, and then he wanted to lay his body down to rest and to escape into glory.
A dying bed is only the spot where the material frame falls asleep. Then we take up the slumbering form, and gently bear it to its narrow bed in Mother Earth. Our very word "cemetery" describes this thought. It is derived from the Greek word koimeterion, which signifies a sleeping-place. It is mingled and promiscuous sleeping-place; but the Master "knoweth them that are His." They who sleep in Him shall awake to be for ever with the Lord.
The early Christians were wise in their generation when they carved on the tomb of the martyrs "In Jesu Christo obdormivit," -In Jesus Christ he fell asleep.
The fragrance of this heavenly line perfumes the very air around the believer's resting -place. Giving to the Latin word its true pronunciation, there is sweet melody, as well as Heaven-sent truth in this song of the sleepers:
"Oh! precious tale of triumph this!
And martyr-blood shed to achieve it,
Of suffering past--of present bliss,
'IN JESU CHRISTO OBDORMIVIT'"
"Of cherished dead be mine the trust,
Thrice-blessed solace to believe it,
That I can utter o'er their dust,
"IN JESU CHRISTO OBDORMIVIT.'
"Now to my loved one's grave I bring
My immortelle and interweave it
With God's own golden lettering,
'IN JESU CHRISTO OBDORMIVIT.'"
