One of the most definite truths of the Old and New Testament is that we shall live again, not only with the same consciousness, but in our present material bodies. "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and in the last day I shall rise out of the earth, and I shall be clothed again in my skin, and in my flesh I shall see my God" (Job xix. 25, 26). The mother of the Machabees said to her sons: "The King of the world will raise us up who die for His laws, in the resurrection of eternal life. . . The Creator of the world . . . will restore to you again in His mercy both breath and life" (2 Mac. vii. 9, 23). St. Paul draws out the proof of our corporeal resurrection from the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And Our Lord tells us that "all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God . . . and shall come forth unto the resurrection" (John v. 28, 29). All nature points out to us the great facts of the permanence of life under change of form, revival after death, the indestructibility of matter and force. The imperfect revivals that we see in progress are figures and assurances of our more perfect revival in a better form, and of the permanence of man, who is the greatest created force on earth. It is a most wonderful illumination of our lives to know that we shall live, not merely in the effects of our actions, like the sunlight; or in the senseless atoms of our bodies, like the trees; or in our descendants; but in our present personal identity with continuous consciousness.
