not be applied to the experiences of both.

My dear friends, we have each of us to pass through that last
struggle; but we may make it either a quiet going to sleep with a
loved Face bending over our closing eyes, like a mother's over her
child's cradle, and the same Face meeting us when we open them in the
morning of heaven; or we may make it a reluctant departure from all
that we care for, and a trembling advance into all from which
conscience and heart shrink.

Which is it going to be to you? The answer depends upon that to
another question. Are you looking to that Christ that died and is
alive for evermore as your life and your salvation? Do you hold fast
that Gospel which Paul preached, 'how that Christ died for our sins
according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose
again the third day, according to the Scriptures'? If you do, life
will be a calm, persevering, expectant waiting upon Him, and death
will be nothing more terrible than falling asleep.

PAUL'S ESTIMATE OF HIMSELF

'By the grace of God I am what I am: and His grace
which was bestowed upon me was not in vain.'--1 COR. xv. 10.

The Apostle was, all his life, under the hateful necessity of
vindicating his character and Apostleship. Thus here, though his main
purpose in the context is simply to declare the Gospel which he
preached, he is obliged to turn aside in order to assert, and to back
up his assertion, that there was no sort of difference between him
and the other recognised teachers of Christian truth. He was forced
to do this by persistent endeavours in the Corinthian Church to deny
his Apostleship, and the faithfulness of his representation of the
Christian verities. The way in which he does it is eminently
beautiful and remarkable. He fires up in vindication of himself; and
then he checks himself. 'By the grace of God I am'--and he is going
to say what he is, but he bethinks himself, as if he had reflected;
'No! I will leave other people to say what that is. By the grace of
God I am--what I am, whatever that be. And all that I have to say is
that God made me, and that I helped Him. For the grace of God which
was bestowed upon me was not in vain. You Corinthians may judge what
the product is. I tell you how it has come about.' So there are
thoughts here, I think, well worth our pondering and taking into our
hearts and lives.

I. First, as to the one power that makes men.

'By the grace of God I am what