make and leave may be very suddenly called for. In such a world of surprises we must have this sure hope that Jesus offers. The thought of Immortality is not abstractit is intensely practical. Everyday life in the New Testament draws its inspiration from the heavenly country. "Children obey your parents in the Lord." "Servants be obedient to your masters as unto Christ." “And ye masters do the same things to them: knowing that both their Master and yours is in heaven." With St. Peter, we confess that we are strangers and pilgrims. To believe all this does not withdraw a man's interest from the present life. "Wherefore my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord." For us here and now the words have extraordinary fitness. Autumn is dying and the fluttering leaves bring pensive reflections on the end of life. Recall that touching service a few days ago, when before the altar of God we commemorated All Saints. Reflect that the Advent season is at hand with its solemn expectation of the returning Lord. To-day the Church meets us with a rapturous hope. This transitory world is not our own. Our great interests are in the heavens. Jesus is there and when He comes for us He will impart what He has and what He is. If we feel that Immortality has dropped out of modern thought, we must remember that it was not so with our Lord, not so with His apostles. No life is what it should be till it acknowledges, in the discharge of present duty, the everlasting hope. Take this thought of Immortality because it expands immeasurably the meaning of life. It is related of Michael Angelo that, criticising the work of a pupil, he wrote on the marble the word "amplius"-"wider" because the young man lacked breadth of treatment, grandeur of thought, bold execution. Just so narrow is anyone's conception of life who leaves out the majesty of eternity. Make your work amplius, wider. Amid the disheartening experiences of life, draw inspiration and courage from the heavenly country. Cherish more affectionately the thought of Immortality. Indulge to the fullest the idea of a better time coming. "We look not at the things which are seen." Desire a better country, that is a heavenly. "It doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like Him." One has said that "a man is a god in the chrysalis." May each of us say: "As for me, I shall behold Thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake with Thy likeness." |