The truth of the resurrection has been forcibly illustrated by the following incident:
In the city of Hanover, Germany, is a grave known as “the open grave.” It is that of a woman, an infidel German princess, who died over one hundred years ago, and who, on her death-bed, gave orders that her grave should be covered with a great marble slab, weighing perhaps a ton, surmounting solid blocks of stone firmly bound together with clasps of iron, with this inscription placed on the lowermost stone of the tomb: “This grave, purchased for eternity, must never be opened.”
But no human device can thwart the plans of God, or hinder the workings of life from Him. It happened, providentially no doubt, that a birch-tree seed was buried with the princess. Soon it began to sprout. Its tiny shoot, soft and pliable at first, found its way up through the ponderous stones of the massive masonry.
Slowly and imperceptibly, but with irresistible power, it grew, until at last, it burst the bands of iron asunder, and opened this never-to-be-opened grave, leaving not a single stone in its original position.
What a rebuke to infidelity! and what a mute but striking promise that, erelong, in God’s own time, all graves shall be opened, and the sleeping ones awake from their dusty beds!
* * * * *
Then should the earth’s old pillars shake,
And all the wheels of nature break,
My steadfast soul would fear no more
Than solid rocks when billows roar.
O for a strong, a lasting faith,
To rest on what the Almighty saith!
To heed the message of His Son,
And call the joys of heaven my own.
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