"Verily, verily, I say unto you, If any one shall keep my word he shall never see death" (John 8:51).

"And every one who lives and believes on Me shall never die" (John 11:26, J. N. D.'s Trans.).

In connection with these statements of our Lord let us recall that of the 23rd psalm:"Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death." All about us we see a combat between life and death. Life is taking up the dust, lifts it out of death, transforms it, imparting to it various forms of beauty. But the creature has no power in itself to resist the return of dust to the dust. So, as our Lord said to them, "Labor not for the food that perisheth, but for that food which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you" (John 6:27).

Sin allures fallen man by gratifying the senses now, and at death his undying spirit is left improvised for in his future. But our Redeemer is the Creator, the author and sustainer of life, and the soul that receives Him never dies-is never separated from the Source of life.

If the "shadow of death" overtakes a believer, our Redeemer calls it "sleep," as to the body; but as to our soul and spirit, whether the body is awake or asleep, "we live together with Him" who is our life eternal :"absent from the body" is, for the believer, "to be present with the Lord" (2 Cor. 5:8)-there is no cessation, no separation from Christ our life-we "shall never see death"-"shall never die." J. E. H. Stimson