^ When Ambrose was on his death-bed, Stilicho, apprehending the loss of such a man to Italy and to Christendom, urged the principal inhabitants of Milan to entreat the effective prayers of the Bishop for his own recovery. " I have not so lived among you," replied Ambrose, " as to be ashamed to live. I have so good a Master, that I am not afraid to die." ^
^ DaJVid Hill's talk when he visited us at Headingley College, Leeds, in 1881, was not only earnest, but it ranged over many subjects, and it showed much insight, much knowledge, much intellectual force. Martin Luther once said that a Christian ought to be the most worldly of men, and in Martin Luther's sense of the word, that all the affairs of this world were the affairs of Christ, David Hill was very " worldly." To hear him discuss mission work in China was to hear him discuss China and all that belonged to her. That her whole national life should be subjected to Christ involved much thought, force, and enterprise on the part of His followers, and it was not possible that they could be content with the inadequate resources and the partial and limited operations that already existed.^
^ I had felt a return of spleen during my stay at Armidale, and had it not been that I had Dr. Johnson to contemplate, I should have sunk into dejection ; but his firmness supported me. I looked at him, as a man whose head is turning giddy at sea looks at a rock, or any fixed object. I wondered at his tranquillity. He said, " Sir, when a man retires into an island, he is to turn his thoughts entirely to another world. He has done with this." BoswELL — " It appears to me, Sir, to be very difficult to unite a due attention to this world, and that which is to come ; for, if we engage eagerly in the affairs of life, we are apt to be totally forgetful of a future state ; and, on the other hand, a steady
* Milman, History of Christianity, iii. 169. « J. E. Hellier, Life of David Uill, 157.
PHILIPPIANS I. 21 283
contemplation of the awful concerns of eternity renders all objects here so insignificant, as to make us indifferent and negligent about them." Johnson — "Sir, Dr. Cheyne has laid down a rule to himself on this subject, which should be imprinted on every mind : To neglect nothing to secure my eternal peace, more than if I had been certified I should die within the day : nor to mind anything that my secular obligations and duties demanded of me, less than if I had been insured to live fifty years more." ^
II.
The Ideal Death.
1. "To die is gain." Paul is ready to welcome death, because he knows that it will usher him into the presence of Christ. "To die is gain," says Paul, and he defines this gain ae being with Christ. In life we represent Christ, but in death we gain His companionship and presence. Paul gave up the things that were worldly gains to him for Christ, and suffered the loss of all things to gain Christ. Is it any wonder that he could face death with such a sublime hope ? " And to die is gain." This is the only place in the New Testament where death is called a gain. The Apostle was in a strait betwixt life and death, and yet what a sublime confidence ! He looked upon death as a means to an end, and the end was gain.
^ " To die is gain" The eye of true life can see clear through the dispensation of dying, and behold the "gain" — can see straight through the troubled night of the final act of man upon earth, and gladden itself with the sight of the morning glory that falls for ever on the hills of heaven. To die is mystery ; to die is speculation ; to die is life's most desperate venture ; to die is life's annihilation ; this is the creed of those whose life is not centred in Christ.^
The ways of Death are soothing and serene.
And all the words of Death are grave and sweet.
From camp and church, the fireside and the street, She signs to come, and strife and song have been.
* Boswell's Journal of a Tour m the Hebrides (Napier's ed. 123).
* Joseph Parker.
284 ST. PAUL'S RULING PASSION
A summer night descending, cool and green
And dark, on daytime's dust and stress and heat,
The ways of Death are soothing and serene,
And all the words of Death are grave and sweet.
0 glad and sorrowful, with triumphant mien And hopeful faces look upon and greet This last of all your lovers, and to meet Her kiss, the Comforter's, your spirit lean, The ways of Death are soothing and serene.^
^ " Love and Death " is one of the best known, as it is one of the most finished, of Watts's paintings. In his prefatory note to the catalogue of the Winter Exhibition at the New Gallery in 1896, the artist said of it that it manifested " the progress of inevitable, but not terrible death, partially but not completely overshadowing love." These words exactly describe the concep- tion. We see death as a gigantic female figure, mounting the steps and opening the door of a house where the tragedy of life is accomplishing itself, and the parting agonies within that are left to the imagination. Love is seen in the form of a winged youth, small in stature compared to death, but strong and resolute in endeavouring with all his might to prevent the entrance of death, but altogether in vain. With irresistible force he is swept out of the way, and his wings are bruised, and his form battered in the dread encounter. The bright roses that were growing round the doorway have fallen from their trellises, and are withering away unheeded on the ground. The problem of expressing harmoniously at the same time violent action and graceful attitude, attempted resistance and irresistible might, has been solved with wonderful success in these two typical figures.