So reason the children of the world; but are not their reasonings and feelings a proof of their little faith, and of their poor conceptions of spiritual and eternal interests? They do not want to leave the world, because they love it; and they love the world, because their faith is too weak to raise them to a vision of higher things. The plain on which they stand is too low clearly to see the things of Heaven. How poor and trifling at best is the earth and all it contains to Him who beholds with a vivid faith the world above that is to come! How gladly does he lay down his life and give up the struggle with ceaseless battles, who sees by faith, just beyond the portals of death, the great home of the blessed, spread out like a city on the mountains, bathed in light inaccessible, full of joy and unending gladness, where “death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more.”(79) The man of faith, therefore, is in no wise straightened or disturbed by the approach of death. He has learned to know and to trust the good Master whom he serves. Like the Apostle, he is only concerned that Christ should be glorified in him at all times and in all things, “whether it be by life or by death;” for to him also, “to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”(80) He lives in the world, but is not of it; he treads the ways of earth, but he really belongs to the kingdom above. Hence his cup of interior peace is ever running over. Though surrounded by many evils, he does not faint; though tempted exceedingly, he does not yield; but is joyous and peaceful withal; because at all times and in all things he feels himself to be the faithful servant of God, “in much patience, in tribulation, in necessities, in distresses, in strifes, in prisons, in seditions, in labors, in watchings, in fastings, in chastity, in knowledge, in long-suffering, in sweetness, in the Holy Ghost, in charity unfeigned; ... as dying, and yet living; as chastised, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as needy, yet enriching many; as having nothing, yet possessing all things.”(81)