Think, think, my friends. For what
is life that we should make such ado about it, and hug it so closely, and
look to it to fill our hearts? What is all earthly life with all its bad
and good luck, its riches and its poverty, but a vapour that passes
away?--noise and smoke overclouding the enduring light of heaven. A man
may be very happy and blest in this life; yet he may feel that, however
pleasant it is, at root it is no reality, but only a shadow of realities
which are eternal and infinite in the bosom of God, a piecemeal pattern,
of the Light Kingdom--the city not made with hands--eternal in the
heavens. For all this time-world, as a wise man says, is but like an
image, beautifully and fearfully emblematic, but still only an emblem,
like an air image, which plays and flickers in the grand, still mirror of
eternity. Out of nothing, into time and space we all came into noisy
day; and out of time and space into the silent night shall we all return
into the spirit world--the everlasting twofold mystery--into the light-
world of God's love, or the fire-world of His anger--every like unto its
like, and every man to his own place.
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