There is no death! an angel form Walks o’er the earth with silent tread, And bears our best loved things away, And then we call them dead." _Lord Lytton._ I have spoken in the earlier part of this book on the general subject of death; I now want to add a few words on that which so many, even of the best of us, feel, the fear of death. I suppose there have been times in the lives even of the best and bravest men when this fear rose up before them. Times when the dark valley looked darker than usual, and life seemed sweeter than it really was. It is but human to fear what we can in no way understand, and certainly none of us can understand death. His is a message which comes to all alike; to rich and to poor, to young and to old; the soldier on the battle-field, who lays down his life for his country; the sailor, who sinks into a watery grave, and whom the dark wave covers; the missionary, who dies for his Master’s sake; to these and many more the angel of death comes, and, whether they are ready or no, they have to yield to his bidding. But of this we may be sure, that God never takes any one away from this world until his work is done. We all of us have some special work to do, either good or evil, and until that work is done we shall be kept from danger and from death. The right way then to look upon death is as the gate that leads us to a better world, the pathway leading to Christ. And the prayer of our heart should be this-- "Let me be with Thee where Thou art, Where spotless saints Thy Name adore; Then only will this sinful heart Be evil and defiled no more. Let me be with Thee where Thou art, Where none can die, where none remove; Where neither life nor death can part Me from Thy Presence and Thy Love." And if that is the feeling that you have with regard to the life to come, death can have no terrors for you. "The sting of death is _sin_," but Jesus died long ago to wash your sins away. If then you are free from sin, that is from wilful sin, you will have but little fear of death. It is Satan who gives us this fear; it is Christ who takes the fear away. But in order not to fear death, we must be prepared for it. If a man _really_ loves God he is prepared to die anywhere and at any moment, and so he does not fear death. "Unto the godly," says David, "there ariseth up a light in the darkness." And so we may say now that to the Christian there ariseth up a light greater and brighter than any David knew of in the darkness of death, even that light which came "to lighten the Gentiles, and to be the glory of His people Israel."