glorify God, and that it is not a question whether we shall glorify God by death, but only by what special kind of death we shall give Him glory. It is not, then, the privilege of apostles and martyrs and other saints, to glorify God by their deaths—all deaths give glory to God, and in this truth lies another element of their sacred character. How is this? It is because death in itself, and as that which every human soul must pass through at the end of its life, is a great vindicator of the rights of God against what is rebellious against Him, and a great vindicator of the truth of God against what belies Him and questions Him—as holy David says in his Psalm of Penance, Ut justificeris in sermonibus tuis, et vincas cum judicaris—“That Thou mayest be justified in Thy words, and mayest overcome when Thou art judged."1

Before man sinned, the warning went forth, which Satan persuaded him to disregard, "In the day in which thou eatest thereof, thou shall die," and the tempter said, "Ye shall not surely die." Now the truthfulness of God and the mendacity of the father of lies require that the word should come true, and that every man should die. And every single death of a child of Adam, of the babe of an hour of life, or of the aged sinner of a century, testifies to the truth of God and the falsehood of Satan. But again, when man chose to sin, he rebelled against his Lord, and from that moment the beautiful Kingdom of God which He had made for Himself in man became a Kingdom divided

1 Psalm 1. 6.

against itself, a scene of rebellion and discord and warfare against God. Pride rose up to defy God. Sensuality broke loose, and degraded and debased. and defiled the nature which He had made pure and upright. Avarice, selfishness, greed of temporal goods hardened, perverted, blinded man, and bent him down. Charity was extinguished, anger and cruelty were raised in its place. These are the enemies of God in man, and in death God acts like a great King, Who by a single word or touch tumbles in the dust all who have lifted themselves up against Him. The soul has sinned against Him, by the use it has made of the body, of the objects of sense, of the world in which it was set to serve Him. The soul itself is indestructible, but at the moment of death it undergoes a complete humiliation before the majesty of God. All human pride is brought to nothing, and those things which have been the instruments or the occasions of sin are reduced to dust. The world of sense vanishes. The strength of the mighty, the wealth of the rich, the greatness of noble race, knowledge, or talent, or power, or beauty, or grace, or excellence of any kind of which our poor human nature can plume itself—all are cast down and come to dust at the foot-stool of the throne of God. The moment which brings the soul into His presence puts an end to all false greatness, to all pretences and shams and impostures. All become nothing, emptiness, vanity, corruption, in His presence. Men may make even gods in this life of money, or pleasure, or power-and when the touch of death comes, these idols which they have

worshipped are broken to pieces before them. The flesh which has been indulged, is chastised by falling to dust and becoming food for worms, and all things else that men have delighted in and set their hearts upon are annihilated. The slave of avarice becomes poor, naked, miserable, and has to leave all his goods and possessions. The justice of God falls on everything which has been His enemy in the soul of man, everything that has been set up in His place, everything for the sake of which His law has been forsaken and His rights despised. You may remember how, in one of His parables, our Lord describes the King who returns from a far country to take account of his servants, and how He makes him say, "As for those mine enemies, who would not have me reign over them, bring them in hither and kill them before me."1 This is what takes place at death. All on which execution is then done has been the enemy of God. The soul may have served God, and if it has, the world of sense, and the body, and all that it has possessed and used, have been the instruments of its service. But still they have been instruments which have had to be conquered, they have been the home of every evil inclination, every low appetite, and it is for the justice of God that they should be destroyed.

But, my brethren, this leads us to another point in what I call the sacredness of death, which is more consoling and more encouraging to us. No doubt if we love God, as the angels love God, it must be

1 St. Luke xix. 27.

a joy to us to see His justice satisfied, to see His truthfulness proved, to see Him glorified by the confusion of whatever has gainsaid Him, or the humiliation of whatever has raised itself up in proud rebellion against Him. In this sense we may imagine them to rejoice in the physical calamities which are inflicted from time to time on God's enemies, nay, even in the destruction of the whole world which is to close the history of man, and to usher in the new heaven and new earth unsullied, unstained by iniquity. In this sense we may say that the angels rejoice for His sake at the sight of death, as the loyal subjects and children of the great King, at the vindication of His authority and the punishment of His enemies. Yes, but the angels have not to die themselves, and yet there have been saints who have said that the angels, if they could form a wish against the arrangements of His will, might even wish that they were able to taste of death in order that they might honour God thereby. Now, what is denied to the angels is the necessity of nature to us. Take then, as this last feature about death which makes it so sacred, if we understand it as we ought, that although we cannot avoid it, although it comes to those who shun it and flee from it, as well as to those who court it, still, such is the goodness of God, we have the power of accepting it, or making it voluntary, and so meritorious and most acceptable and pleasing to God. Our Lord said of His own life,1 1 "No man taketh it away from Me, but I lay it down of Myself, I have power 1 St. John x. 18.

to lay it down and to take it up again.” We cannot say this—and yet we can do in this, as in everything that happens to us by the will and providence of God, we can make it as much an act of our own will as if it depended on ourselves. And by doing this, we can share, in our poor and humble way, that perfect sacrifice of Himself into the hands of His Father which our Lord made at His own Death. Did He not say in the Garden, "Father, if it be possible let this chalice pass from Me,” as if to let us see that He too chose to take up and share that natural reluctance and shrinking from death which any one of us may feel? And did He not say after that, "Not My will but Thine be done," as if to teach us to overcome the shrinkings of the flesh by the vigour of the spirit, and place ourselves unreservedly in the hands of His Father? And on that surrender of our Lord, my brethren, are founded the holy and willing deaths of all His true children.

I do not speak of the martyrs alone, or of the saints. God, the Master of life and death, sometimes takes weak men and women like ourselves, He has taken them from all ranks and ages and conditions, and without requiring in them beforehand any consummate sanctity, but simply Christian faith, and then He has put them to the test, to confess their faith under pain of mortal sin, and by confessing it, to suffer excruciating tortures and to die. This sacrifice, which He has actually exacted of some, He might exact of all, just as the service of the country may require the sacrifice of the life