bility of
"Happiness in Life and in Death." "The Apostle," he says, "is asking
here which is most worth while for him, to live or to die. Often has
that question presented itself to us, and perhaps we, like the Apostle,
have answered that 'we are in a strait.' But I fear we may have used
the words in a sense far different from St Paul's. When we have wished
for death, we meant to say, 'I know not which alternative I ought most
to dread, the afflictions of life, from which death would release me,
or the terrors of death, from which life protects me.' In other words,
life and death look to us like two evils of which we know not which is
the less. As for the Apostle, they look to him like two immense
blessings, of which he knows not which is the better. Personally, he
prefers death, in order to be with Christ. As regards the Church and
the world, he prefers life, in order to serve Jesus Christ, to extend
His kingdom, and to win souls for Him. What an admirable view of life
and of death!--admirable, because it is all governed (_dominiee_), all
sanctified, by love, and is akin to the Lord Jesus Christ's own view of
life and death. Let us set ourselves to enter into this feeling
(_sentiment_). Life is good; death is good. Death is good, because it
releases us from the miseries of this life, but above all because, even
were life full for us of all the joys which earth can give, death bids
us enter into a joy and a glory of which we can form no idea. We are
then to consider death as a thing desirable in itself. Let us not shun
what serves to remind us of it. Let all the illnesses, all the sudden
deaths, all that passes round us, remind us that for each one of us
death may come at any moment. But then life also is good, because in
life we can serve, glorify, imitate, Jesus Christ. Life is not worth
the trouble of living for any other object. All the strength we
possess, all the breath, the life, the faculties, all is to be
consecrated, devoted, sanctified, crucified, for the service of our
Lord Jesus Christ. This crucified life is the happy life, even amidst
earth's bitterest pains; it is the life in which we can both taste for
ourselves and diffuse around us the most precious blessings. Let us
love life, let us feel the value of life--but to fill it with Jesus
Christ. In order to such a state of feeling, the Holy Spirit alone can
transform us into new men. But observe; it is not only that _our
spirit_ must