The Apostle [Paul] is asking in Philippians 1 which is most worthwhile for him, to live or to die. Often has that question presented itself to us, and perhaps we like the Apostle, have answered that “we are in a strait.” But I fear we may have used the words in a sense far different from Paul's. When we have wished for death, we meant to say, “I know not which alternative I ought most to dread, the afflictions of life, from which death would release me, or the terrors of death, from which life protects me.” In other words, life and death look to us like two evils of which we know not which is the less. As for the Apostle, they look to him like two immense blessings of which he knows not which is the better (Adolphe Monod).