everything of which we have ever had any experience, and to launch out alone into an invisible world.  It cannot, therefore, be an easy thing to die in peace.  But, thanks be to God, we believe that the departing spirit passes at once into the loving presence of our Redeemer, and why should there not be peace?  I believe it is the forgetfulness of this personal entrance into the personal presence of a personal Saviour that sometimes seems to darken the dying hour.  People forget those few words, “Thou art with me,” [31a] and then they are afraid.  But when we rest on those words, and combine them with our assured hope, knowing that He is now with us invisibly, and that we are going to be with Him visibly, then we shall be able to say, as Simeon did, “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace.”

III.  The Great Foundation of Simeon’s Peaceful Trust.

His eyes had seen the salvation of God.  What he had really seen was the promised Messiah, that is, the Lord’s Christ.  The little child was the promised Saviour, and to him the Saviour was salvation.  The Person and the Gift were so bound together that they were as one.  He could not know the Person without the Gift, or enjoy the Gift except through the Person.  Thus our Lord, more than thirty years afterwards, spoke of Himself as “the Salvation,” [31b] when He said, as He entered into the house of Zacchæus, “This day is salvation come to this house.”  Simeon had what we cannot have, something material that he could handle and look upon.  His hand could handle and his eye could see the little child; and there cannot be a doubt that there is in the human mind a craving after something visible, tangible, and material.  But we have nothing of the kind; we cannot hold our salvation in our hands.  Neither do we want it there.  It is safer in the hands of our Lord Himself.  But though we cannot say, “Mine eyes have seen,” we can say, thanks be to God, “Mine heart hath seen,” and we can understand the words, “Whom having not seen, ye love.” [32a]  There is exactly the same union in that passage between the Saviour and the salvation.  Receiving Him we receive salvation, and beholding Him with the eye of faith we behold, as it were, our names written in the Book of Life.

To behold the Saviour is a very personal matter.  It is not merely to behold Him like a monument on a distant hill, which we can admire, but never enter; or as a harbour of refuge which we cannot reach.  It must not be with us as it was with Balaam when he said, “I shall behold Him, but not nigh,” [32b] for the invitation to us is to draw near, and our privilege is in our inmost soul to pour out our heart before Him, as before One who knows all its secrets, and through His own most precious blood has blotted out all its guilt.  This has thrown a gleam of sacred light into many a death-chamber.  May God grant that it may be the same with each of us.  Let none of us rest until we can say, “Mine eyes have seen Thy salvation,” till we not merely know that there is a Saviour, but can rest assured that He has saved us, and has made us—even us—heirs of God and joint-heirs with Himself in His kingdom.

A PEACEFUL LIFE

“To me to live is Christ.”—Phil. i. 21.

We have studied the subject of a peaceful death-bed and I hope we learned how to die.  Let us now turn our thoughts to a peaceful life and endeavour to learn how to live.  The two things are bound fast together.

Let us study what St. Paul meant when he said, “To me to live is Christ.”  When there is any one object, for which, and in which, a person lives, it is not an uncommon thing to say it is his life.  To a certain extent this explains the expression, “To me to live is Christ,” for the Lord Jesus Christ was the one absorbing object of St. Paul’s whole life.  He thought of Him; he leaned on Him; he trusted in Him; he loved Him, and he lived for Him.  He could not do without Him.  If we look at the subject more in detail we find three things very clearly taught us in Scripture.  Our life is hidden with Him, dependent on Him, and devoted to Him.

HIDDEN WITH HIM

In this stormy world we perpetually need a hiding-place, a shelter from the storm, and a covert from the blast.  And so in the great prophecy of our Lord and Saviour revealed in Isaiah, we read of Him, “A man shall be as an hiding-place from the wind.” [34a]  But three centuries before Isaiah uttered that prophecy David had learnt to hide under His care, and said of Him, “Thou art my hiding-place.” [34b]  The trouble from which he was hiding was deep conviction of sin.  In consequence of his sin the hand of God had been heavy upon him day and night.  But at length the guilt of his great sin had been blotted out, and as a forgiven man he could find shelter in the very God against whom he had transgressed.  He could hide himself in the love of Him against whom he had sinned, and instead of finding the Lord’s hand heavy upon him, he could rejoice in the thought that there was a wall of praise around him.  Now just in the same way our life is said to be hidden with Christ.  “Your life is hid with Christ in God.” [34c]  It is not exposed to the rude shocks of the outer world, but is hidden with Him.  As He is unseen, so it is unseen; but as He is safe at the right hand of the Father, so is it safe, being laid up in perfect safety as a sure deposit in the everlasting fidelity of God.  It is on the safety of this deposit that our whole life depends.  If there were the slightest doubt about it we should be like ships drifting on the wide ocean without either chart, compass, or anchorage.  But now we are safe because indissolubly bound up with the Saviour, and so completely is our life identified with Him that in the next verse He is described as “Christ our life.”  He holds our life in His right hand.  He is the source, the fountain, and the main spring of it all, so that we can well understand the words of St. John, “He that hath the Son hath life.” [34d]