en if we turn to Him, amid the pains of His discipline and the joys
of His gifts of grace, with recognition and acceptance of His meaning
in them all, and cry to Him, 'Thy mercy, O Lord, endureth for ever,
forsake not the work of Thine own hands,' we may be always confident,
as knowing that 'the Lord will perfect that which concerneth us.'

THE OLD HOUSE AND THE NEW

'We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent
from the body, and to be present with the Lord.'--2 COR. v. 8.

There lie in the words of my text simply these two things; the
Christian view of what death is, and the Christian temper in which to
anticipate it.

I. First, the Christian view of what death is.

Now it is to be observed that, properly speaking, the Apostle is not
here referring to the state of the dead, but to the act of dying. The
language would more literally and accurately be rendered 'willing to
_go from_ home, from the body, and to _go_ home, to the Lord.' The
moment of transition of course leads to a permanent state, but it is
the moment of transition which is in view in the words. I need not
remind you, I suppose, that the metaphor of the home is one which has
already been dwelt upon in the early part of the chapter, where the
contrast is drawn between the transitory house of 'this tent,' and
the 'building of God,' the body of incorruption and glory which the
saints at the Resurrection day shall receive. So, then, the Christian
view of the act of death is that it is simply a change of abode.

Very clearly and firmly does Paul draw the line between the man and
his dwelling-place. Life is more than a result of organisation.
Consciousness, thought, feeling, are more than functions of matter.
No materialist philosopher has ever been, or ever will be, able to
explain within the limits of his system the strange difference
between the cause and the effect; how it comes to pass that at the
one end of the chain there is an impression upon a nerve, and at the
other there is pain; how at the one end there is the throb of an inch
of matter in a man's skull, and at the other end there are thoughts
that breathe and words that burn, and that live for ever. That brings
us up to the edge of a gulf over which no materialist philosopher has
ever been able to cast a bridge. The scalpel cannot cut deep enough
to solve this mystery. Conscience as well as instinct cry out against
the theory that the worker and the tools are insepar