Christian Hope

 The Christian hope answers expectation to the full, and much beyond it, and deceives no way but in that happy way of far exceeding it. A living hope—living in death itself! The world dares say no more for its device, than 'While I breathe I hope'—but the children of God can add by virtue of this living hope, 'While I breathe my last, I hope.' It is a fearful thing when a man and all his hopes die together. Thus says Solomon of the wicked: When he dies, then die his hopes; (many of them before, but at the utmost then--all of them!) But the righteous has hope in his death. Death, which cuts the sinews of all other hopes, and turns men out of all other inheritances, alone fulfils this hope, and ends it in fruition; as a messenger sent to bring the children of God home to the possession of their inheritance.  Leighton

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