hrist is far better!"

So the young Christian passed away, exchanging life which was sweet for
death which, because of the life it would reveal, was sweeter. And
"the veterans of the King" say just the same. If ever a man enjoyed
life, with a vigorous and conscious joy, it was Simeon of Cambridge.
And till the age of exactly seventy-seven he was permitted to _live_
with a powerful life indeed; a life full of affections, interests,
enterprises, achievements, and all full of Christ. Yet in that
energetic and intensely human soul "the _desire_ was to depart and to
be with Christ." It was no dreamy reverie; but it was supernatural.
It stimulated him to unwearied work; but it was breathed into him from
eternity. "I cannot but run with all my might," he wrote in the midst
of his youthful old age, "_for I am close to the goal_."

It is indeed a phenomenon peculiar to the Gospel, this view of life and
death. It is far more than resignation. It is different even from the
"holy indifference" of the mystic saints. For it is full of warmth,
and sympathy, and all the affections of the heart, _in both
directions_. The man who is the happy possessor of this secret does
not on the one hand go about saying to himself that all around him is
_maya_, is a dream, a phantasm of the desert sands counterfeiting the
waters and the woods of Eden. He is as much alive in human life as the
worldling is, and more. He cordially loves his dear ones; he is the
open-hearted friend, the helpful neighbour, the loving and loyal
citizen and subject, the attentive and intelligent worker in his daily
path of duty. Time with its contents is full of reality and value to
him. He does not hold that the earth is God-forsaken. With his Lord
(Ps. civ.), he "rejoices in the works" of that Lord's hands; and, with
the heavenly Wisdom (Prov. viii.), "his delights are with the sons of
men." But on the other hand, he does not banish from his thoughts as
if it were unpractical the dear prospect of another world. He is not
foolish enough to talk of "other-worldliness," as if it were a selfish
thing to "lay up treasure in heaven," and so to have "his heart there
also." For him the present could not possibly be what it is in its
interests, affections, and purposes, if it were not for the revealed
certainties of an everlasting future in the presence of the King. "He
faints not," in the path of genuine temporal toil and duty, because "he
looks at the things w