The Christian View of Life and Death.

PHILIPPIANS 1: 21. "For me to live is Christ, to die is

gain."

WERE We seeking the noblest word in the teaching of the great Apostle, I am not sure that I should not select this declaration, named as the text. Few passages in his writings, I am confident, can be more triumphant. Perhaps no simple declaration combines so many elements of noble thought, or expresses a diviner trust. I can find abundant statements of a similar feeling in respect to death-many words equally full of immortal hope-rejoicing questionings concerning the departed sting of death, and the lost victory of the grave. And though the apostle bewails the bitter contests with his own passions yet unsubdued, and is keenly alive to the pains of his varied persecutions, I can still find pure expressions of the present peace attending a heavenly life; pure gushings of joy from the well of living waters, the deep fountains of faith and love in his breast. But nowhere, perhaps, do we find the triumph in both respects declared so clearly in a single sentence. Nowhere with greater distinctness certainly, do we see how the true heart is conqueror in life and death alike; over all that

could oppose it in one case, or seem to cloud its future in the other. Nowhere do we see more plainly, how it may make all bright through its own heaven; so that to live is Christ, that one word expressive of all hope and blessedness to the disciples' hearts, and to die was gain, the unutterable joy of his nearer presence still.

And it impresses me still more, to remember the circumstances of the apostle's history. I begin to appreciate the triumph the text declares, when I think of that. This note of joy was struck in a prison. The apostle was writing while burdened with bonds. And the release of which the epistle intimates a hope, what was that? It would allow him to go again to his loved field of duty indeed. But it would lead him into perils, from which imprisonment was a protection. Men magnify an immortal hope when the present is beset with difficulties. They paint the future more brilliantly, as darkness thickens round them. It would not be strange to hear the imprisoned apostle, bruised with rods, scarred by stripes, in peril every hour of the martyrdom he suffered at last, exclaiming, "To die is gain !" But to hear him say at the same moment, "To live is Christ," neither darkening the present by any temptation to despondency, nor magnifying the future because of the present gloom, seems to me the sublimity of holy trust. I perceive how deep the Redeemer's peace must be which he left

to dwell in the true disciple's heart. I find the comment upon Paul's own words, when he elsewhere says, "Neither death, nor life, nor things present, nor things to come, shall be able to separate us from the love of God." I begin to apprehend what Jesus means, when he says, "He that liveth and believeth on me, shall never die."

"To live, is Christ; to die, is gain." It is difficult to say which is most extraordinary, or most grand, the view Christianity gives of life, or its view of death. We are accustomed to speak of its victory over death, as its great, almost its crowning blessing. But the victory in life whereof it speaks, hath a wondrous glory too. I scarcely know which receives the brighest transfiguration, when we ascend into any true communion with the spirit in which the Redeemer regarded them. The life beyond the grave, as we follow Jesus in our thought from his deserted sepulchre, is glorious indeed. "He sitteth on the right hand of the Father," in a closeness of communion no earthly image can illustrate. But when he talked with Nicodemus in Jerusalem, he spoke of himself" as the son of man who is in heaven! And he ever liveth in the same spirit of intercession, in which he pleaded with men in Samaria and Galilee. His death is scarcely brighter than his life. The Lord when re-appearing to his disciples after his crucifixion, spoke to Peter and Thomas and the twelve, and

breathed the same love, as before he went down to the grave. The ascending Saviour is scarcely more lovely, more divine, or more glorious, than the Saviour when praying for his murderers to be forgiven. And that prayer of forgiveness upon the cross brought an inward peace, we are almost ready to say, sweet as aught risen spirits may know. We go to the tomb whence the stone was rolled away, to say, "He is risen," and thus utter the assured hope of the whole race of dying But we follow his steps in his ministry, to see even here a risen, immortal life. And, as at times, we catch a glimpse of the deep things in his heart, when he speaks, or works some miracle of love, we learn what a divine thing it may be to live, as well as what a blessed thing it may be to die. The robe of death, and the garments of life, alike receive a transfiguration, and become white as the light.

men.

In truth, Christianity speaks to the twofold error into which men have often fallen, in their wrong impressions of life and death. It speaks to the feeling making death so fearful, that all our lifetime we should be subject to bondage through the fear. It speaks no less to the other error, either of an old philosophy, that called the body the prison of the soul, and existence here of course, but a continued imprisonment, or the mistake of common feeling, which depreciates it, or in any way robes it in gloom, as a vale of tears, or

makes it anything less than an opening of heaven. According to Christianity, life and death are twinchildren of the same love. According to Christianity, I think, present being and future being are only different parts of one whole. And between those parts, death scarcely interposes any seam. Life in all its periods is as one unbroken stream; growing wider, deeper, more beautiful if you please flowing at length amid fields of "living green," and "never withering flowers." Yet still the stream is one. Only in part of its course, it flows before our view, and in part beyond our sight. The waters of life, and the waters of death, are not opposite in their nature. They are both the water of life in God's purpose, flowing out to quicken us by an ever-increasing inspiration. Christianity does say, "To die is gain.” It speaks of unconceived glories yet to be revealed. It says also of whomsoever hath an obedient heart, "The Father and the Son make their abode with him." The glory of the future it reveals, shines back upon the present, illuminating the scenes which are to be its preparation, and see its morning dawn. In truth, in Christianity there is a mutual re-action between the ideas of present and future being, and each is to brighten the conception of the other. The love we imagine, will walk in visible brightness in worlds beyond the grave, is upon this side of the tomb also, sending its rains and its blessings to every child. And the