will, 'all things work together for good' to His lovers. The
triumphant words of my text are no piece of empty rhetoric, but the
plain result of two facts--Christ's rule and the Christian's
submission. 'All things are yours, and ye are Christ's,' so the stars
in their courses fight against those who fight against Him, and if we
are at peace with Him we shall 'make a league with the beasts of the
field, and the stones of the field,' which otherwise would be
hindrances and stumbling-blocks, 'shall be at peace with' us.

The Apostle carries his confidence in the subservience of all things
to Christ's servants very far, and the words of my text, in which he
dares to suggest that 'the Shadow feared of man' is, after all, a
veiled friend, are hard to believe, when we are brought face to face
with death, either when we meditate on our own end, or when our
hearts are sore and our hands are empty. Then the question comes, and
often is asked with tears of blood, Is it true that this awful force,
which we cannot command, does indeed serve us? Did it serve those
whom it dragged from our sides; and in serving them, did it serve us?
Paul rings out his 'Yes'; and if we have as firm a hold of Paul's
Lord as Paul had, our answer will be the same. Let me, then, deal
with this great thought that lies here, of the conversion of the last
enemy into a friend, the assurance that we may all have that death is
ours, though not in the sense that we can command it, yet in the
sense that it ministers to our highest good.

That thought may be true about ourselves when it comes to our turn to
die, and, thank God, has been true about all those who have departed
in His faith and fear. Some of you may have seen two very striking
engravings by a great, though somewhat unknown artist, representing
Death as the Destroyer, and Death as the Friend. In the one case he
comes into a scene of wild revelry, and there at his feet lie, stark
and stiff, corpses in their gay clothing and with garlands on their
brows, and feasters and musicians are flying in terror from the
cowled Skeleton. In the other he comes into a quiet church belfry,
where an aged saint sits with folded arms and closed eyes, and an
open Bible by his side, and endless peace upon the wearied face. The
window is flung wide to the sunrise, and on its sill perches a bird
that gives forth its morning song. The cowled figure has brought rest
to the weary, and the glad dawning of a new life to the a