oung person to die--not one in a
hundred (except in a war time) dies in the prime of his years; and
therefore the chances are that we shall not die young either. The
chances are that we shall live to be old men and women, and we are not
going to be frightened about dying forty years before our death. So in
the meanwhile we will go our own way and enjoy ourselves. It will be
time enough to think of death when death draws near."

Well then, if you have these thoughts, I will ask you, what do you mean
by _chance_? You say, the _chances_ are against your dying young. Pray
what are these wonderful things called chances, which are to keep you
alive for thirty or forty or fifty years more? Did you ever _hear_ a
chance, or _see_ a chance? Or did you ever meet with any one who had?
Did any one ever see a great angel called Chance flying about keeping
people from dying? What is _chance_ on which you depend as you say for
your life? What is _chance_ which you fancy so much stronger than God?
For as long as the _chance_ is against your dying, you are not afraid of
neglecting God and disobeying God, and therefore you must suppose that
_chance_ is stronger than God, and quite able to keep God's anger off
from you for thirty or forty years, till you choose to repent and amend.
What sort of thing is this wonderful chance, which is going to keep you
alive?

Perhaps you will say, "All we meant when we said that the chances were
against our dying was that God's will was against our dying."

Did you only mean that? Then why put the thought of God away by foolish
words about chance? For you know that it is God and God only who keeps
you alive. You must look at that, you must face that. If you are alive
now, God keeps you so. If you live forty years more, God will make you
live that time. And He who can make you live, can also let you _not_
live; and then you will die. God can withdraw the breath of life from
you or me or any one at any moment. And then where would our _chances_
of not dying be? We should die here and now, and know that God is the
Lord and not _chance_ . . .

But think again. If God makes you alive He must have some reason for
making you alive. For mind--it is not as you fancy, that when God leaves
you alone you live, and when He puts forth His power and visits you, you
die. _Not that_, _but the very opposite_. For in Adam all die. Our
bodies are dead by reason of sin, and in the midst of life we ar