These words close the marvellous chapter in which Christ's rising from the dead is set forth as the great fact without which the gospel would be no gospel at all, and in which His return to life is declared to be the promise that we too shall rise again. That chapter passes through several changing moods of feeling. In it St. Paul sometimes argues, sometimes delivers a message as with authority from above, sometimes tells what has already happened, sometimes declares beforehand what is yet to come, sometimes almost fiercely rebukes, sometimes cheers with stirring words of encouragement. Towards the end he rises into an exulting hymn of praise. Beyond that we might think he could not go. We might expect him to leave off there on the highest stretch of uplifted feeling. Or if he in writing his letter had reasons for not pausing there, we might think that at least the Church in her burial service might well have broken off there, and sent forth the mourners with that song of triumph ringing in their ears as the last sounds heard before they leave the house of God. But no! St. Paul does not stop there, and the Church does not stop there.