A bright young girl of fifteen was suddenly cast upon a bed of suffering, completely paralysed on one side, and nearly blind. She heard the family doctor say to her parents as they stood by the bedside—"She has seen her best days, poor child!" "No, doctor," she exclaimed, "my best days are yet to come, when I shall see the King in His beauty."  That is our hope. We shall not sink into annihilation. Christ rose from the dead to give us a pledge of our own rising. The resurrection is the great antidote for fear of death. Nothing else can take its place. Riches, genius, worldly pleasures or pursuits—none can bring us consolation in the dying hour. "All my possessions for a moment of time," cried Queen Elizabeth, when dying. "I have provided in the course of my life for everything except death, and now, alas, I am to die unprepared," were the last words of Cardinal Borgia. Compare with these the last words of one of the early disciples, "I am weary. I will now go to sleep. Good night!" He had the sure hope of awakening in a better land.