Live above its corroding cares and anxieties; remembering the description Jesus gives of His own true people; "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world!" "ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND." Thirty-first Day. CALMNESS IN DEATH. "Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit."--Luke, xxiii. 46. In the death of Jesus, there were elements of fearfulness, which the believer can know nothing of. It was with Him the execution of a penal sentence. The sins of an elect world were bearing him down! The very voice of His God was giving the tremendous summons, "Awake, O sword, against my shepherd!" Yet His was a death of _peace_, nay, of _triumph_! Ere He closed His eyes, light broke through the curtains of thick darkness. In the calm composure of filial confidence He breathed away His soul--"Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit!" What was the secret of such tranquillity? This is His own key to it--"I have glorified Thee on the earth; I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do." Reader! will it be so with _you_ at a dying hour? will _your_ "work" be done? Have you already fled to Jesus? Are you reposing in Him as your only Saviour, and following Him as your only pattern? Then--let death overtake you when it may--you will have nothing to do _but to die_! The grave will be irradiated with His presence and smile. He will be standing there as He did by His own tomb of old, pointing to yours, tenanted with angel forms, nay, Himself as the "Precursor," showing you "_the path of life!_" There can be no true peace till the fear of death be conquered by the sense of sin forgiven, through "the blood of the Cross." "Not till then," as one has it, "will you be able to be a quiet spectator of the open grave at the bottom of the hill which you are soon to descend." "The sting of death is _sin_, but thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through the Lord Jesus Christ!" Seek now to live in the enjoyment of greater filial nearness to your covenant God; and thus, when the hour of departure _does_ come, you will be able, without irreverence, to take the very words of your dying Lord, and make them your own--"FATHER! into Thy hands I commend my spirit." FATHER! It is going HOME! the heart of the child leaping at the thought of the paternal roof, and the paternal welcome! "Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine!"