The connexion of this passage with the description of those turbulent times, to which the vision more immediately refers, would perhaps justify the application of it, in the first instance, to those who lose their lives in the cause of the gospel: but the passage is doubtless to be interpreted in a larger sense; and must apply to multitudes in all ages, whether dying in the usual course of Divine Providence, or driven from the earth by the hand of persecution. 

That such is the view taken of the matter by our Church, we are continually reminded, when the intelligence is most seasonable and most impressive.  While we are standing around the grave to discharge the last tribute of regard to those whom we loved in life, and whom we now seem to have lost for ever, then it is that she proclaims to us by the mouth of her minister, Blessed are the dead, which die in the Lord.

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