DEATH NOT DEATH, Preached in the Cathedral, Victoria, Vancouver Island, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep My saying, he shall never see death."-JOHN viii. 51. THE Pharisees were startled at this saying, and we cannot wonder at it. It so flatly contradicted the universal experience of mankind, that every one challenged it. It asserted so pointedly the personal claims of Christ, that there seemed to be but one of two alternatives: either He had a devil, and so was not accountable for His sayings; or He was a blasphemer, and then He deserved to be stoned. Christ, we may observe, expected, and indeed intended this. Nay, it was His method, and He had often used it before. A sincere teacher, whatever his doctrine may be, aims at two results with his hearers. He must make them think, that justice may be done to His teaching. He must make them feel, that their convictions may pass into their lives. Now, wherever there is stubborn prejudice, and that inveterate repugnance to spiritual teaching which a hard formalism invariably engenders in the mind, a gentle and winning persuasiveness will only stir contempt. The crust of obstinate traditionalism needs to be suddenly, even roughly, penetrated with the spear's thrust of a sharp apophthegm. The iron flail of a crushing dialectic must. mercilessly silence the self-love that does not so much fear error as the shame of being detected in it. It is a lesson for all teachers, of all kinds of truth, and with every sort. of learner, that to give even a painful shock to the mind by the blunt utterance of a paradox is sometimes the kindest as well as the wisest way of training and stimulating it, and that next to a love of truth for its own sake comes in importance the habit of an absolute intrepidity in stating it, without too much weighing the consequences, or too much impatience for the results. Christ's saying is of world-wide significance. Does not each of you, my brethren, feel that it is for him? He introduced it by a formula which with Him always indicates a change of subject. "Verily, verily." He expressed it in words which the Jews immediately afterwards misquoted, and which should be exactly weighed, to ascertain what they really convey. That enemy, whom we are continually fighting, who often has to wait, but who is content to wait, knowing that he will have us at last-"death"is a familiar word enough. "My saying" marks the whole revelation of Christ in its organic completeness, and not any one feature of it. To "keep" expresses rather the idea of intent watching than of safe guarding. The "seeing" death, in the original, indicates a long, steady, exhaustive contemplation, whereby we do not merely glance at and perceive, but become slowly and increasingly acquainted with the nature of the object we look at. And the sentence paraphrased will run thus: "Whoever accepts, observes, acts out My teaching, while he must not expect not to die, will find death when it comes so utterly transformed for him, that his dread of it will be gone; he will cease to anticipate it with anguish; nay, he will conquer even while he yields." First let us examine Christ's statement about death, and then observe the magnificent inference that flows from it. "If a man keep My saying, he shall never see death." Death, as we call it, affects us in four ways. The body it ultimately dissolves into its constituent elements, until it finally disappears. Even before it lays its last grip on us it is wont to disintegrate the organs and tissues of our physical life by a slow and often humiliating decay. The conscience, I do not say with all, but certainly with a great number, it penetrates with the awfully quickening sense of responsibility and the apprehension of inevitable judgment. The will, with all its forces and apparatus of energy and action, it goes to paralyze by a total and final suspension of its opportunities and aspirations. The heart it wounds as with the piercings of a sword. In the fine expression of a living writer, "creatures who love so much have their days shut round with a wall of darkness." All this is a mere matter of experience, which no one in his senses will care to dispute. It would be easy to dilate on it with pathos, or to describe it in thrilling detail; but each heart has its own sufficient store of sacred and tender memories, and we will leave the curtain closed. Now, Christ says about death that keeping His saying will prevent us from seeing it. Did He mean seeing it before it comes, or seeing it when it comes? Both, probably. The one includes the other. But the idea of anticipation is perhaps paramount. The quite young and the elderly think of it most. It is a mistake constantly to be thinking of it, and it is a risk never to think of it. To scorn it is a nobler error than to dread it, |