"With Christ, which is far better."-PHIL. i. 23.

HE Apostle Paul's was a troubled life: from the moment that the young and bigoted Jewish enthusiast heard the chiding voice which said, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" and became the devoted disciple

of Him whose Holy Name he had blasphemed, from that day forward his life was, with very few exceptions, a life of conflict and trial, of hardship and pain, of persecution and tribulation-a life of daily dying and hourly cross-bearing. From his first proclamation of the gospel at Damascus down to the last scene in the dungeon at Rome, he can hardly be said to have had one moment of perfect temporal peace and safety. It is not an exaggeration to say that throughout his earthly career he carried his life in his hand. Writing to the Corinthians on the subject of the resurrection, he appeals to them in such language as this, "Why stand we in jeopardy

every hour? I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily." Nor was this the language of rhetorical fervour, but the actual experience of the apostle's life. Each day brought its own fresh dangers and risks-deadly encounters and hair-breadth escapes. At the very commencement his life attempted at Damascus and Jerusalem, and himself expelled from every town in which he preached; one day stoned at Lystra, another day beaten at Philippi; soon afterwards assaulted at Thessalonica and at Berea and at Corinth, then mobbed at Ephesus, and almost torn in pieces at Jerusalem-and these but a fraction of his actual sufferings. In very deed, from his conversion to his martyrdom, there was, humanly speaking, everything to make life a burden

-" without were fightings, within were fears "--so far as his mere bodily existence was concerned, there was no rest, no freedom from care, no cessation of distress, not a moment of peace. But all this while there was one absorbing thought, one powerful consideration, which always upheld him, and even when the raging billows of suffering and persecution beat most fiercely upon him, still kept him from sinking. And it was this: he could look from out his tempest-tost bark, and with far-searching gaze discern a haven of rest, which he was slowly but surely nearing; his eyes could pierce the clouds and mists of earth, and reach up to the bright home beyond the skies; he looked into the far future and saw there the sure and certain reward that awaited him, "the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus." It was this that upbore him in his stormy passage through life; this that made

him calm in the midst of dangers, patient in tribulation, and unmoved by earthly calamities; this that gave him strength in the hour of death-this blessed and glorious hope; and a very short time after these words were written he was able to say, in happy prospect of a speedy release from his woes, "The time of my departure is at hand. . . henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness."

No wonder, then, that we find—and especially at this time, during the depressing influences of an imprisonment at Rome-the apostle expressing an earnest "desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better." He knew full well that, so far as he was concerned, the change would be one of unspeakable gain; it would be a change from unrest to peace, from incessant toil and anxiety to calm repose, from sorrow and tribulation to joy and gladness, from darkness to light, from earth to heaven. And how could "Paul the aged," after his tried and troubled life, help longing for the time when the sorrows of earth would be over, and the eternal joys and glories of heaven begun?

In considering the brief words of my text, let us first seek to understand what the expression “with Christ" means. In verse 21 of this chapter, as well as in Gal. ii. 20, St. Paul declares that to him “to live is Christ." And this expression can only mean a real, close, enduring union, a spiritual communion of life. and action, a complete identification in person and spirit with Jesus Christ in the present. But the union with Christ which this passage speaks of is in the future; and it is evidently something more intense, more sub

stantial, and more enjoyable than even the most spiritually-minded Christian can experience now of Christ's presence in the soul. Perhaps we may best express the difference by saying that our present enjoyment of the presence of Christ consists in having "Christ with us;" while the future enjoyment will consist in our being "with Christ." To have Christ with us here is good-the best thing possible in this world; but "to be with Christ" there is "far better." So we turn to such passages as that in John xvii., where our Lord prays, "Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me." And yet the union here spoken of is not exactly the same as that of my text; for the former seems to refer to that final glorification in the distant future, which will not take place until after the return of the Son of man, in accordance with His promise to the disciples in John xiv., "I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also;" while the union spoken of in my text takes place immediately after death. So then we see that it must be something between the two-a union intermediate between the spiritual union of the believer with Christ in this life and the ineffable reunion of body and soul with the glorified Jesus in the eternal kingdom above. But, on the other hand, it cannot be doubted that this blessed union after death is a real, personal, unbroken enjoyment of Christ's perpetual presence; and we have but to recall the Saviour's dying words to the thief upon the cross, to see that it is the sure and certain heritage of all those

who in the hour of death can with true repentance and earnest faith say, "Lord, remember me," to hear the welcome response, "Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise."

And whatever may be the exact conditions of the intermediate state between this life and the resurrection life, and however far short it may come of the final state of blessedness in God's eternal kingdom, one fact, at any rate, is perfectly certain-we shall be "with Christ, which is far better."

This passage, then, teaches us, that immediately after death the true Christian will be "with Christ," in this sense of a more intense and substantial enjoyment of His presence; and we may now consider a few of the reasons why it will be "far better" to be thus "with Christ." And surely one of the chief reasons is, that we shall be beyond the reach of sin. Probably few men knew better than St. Paul, from daily experience, the value and efficacy of that present deliverance from the dominion of sin which is effected by union with Christ; and yet probably few realized more fully than he did the depravity of man's fallen nature and his liability to sin. To the Corinthians he says, "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall;" and again he warns them, "Lest Satan should get an advantage of us : for we are not ignorant of his devices;" he bids the Galatians, in restoring one that had been "overtaken in a fault," "consider themselves, lest they also be tempted." And speaking of himself, he thus writes, in that searching description of his own experience in Rom. vii., "When I would do good, evil is present