CanTherebeUnity (continued)
first Epistle to the Corinthians about the resurrection of the body. Beautiful are the sentences and prayers appointed to be read as the body is laid in its home beneath the earth. But especially beautiful, to my mind, are the Psalms which are selected for reading when the mourners have just taken their places in church. I know of nothing which sounds so soothing, honouring, heart-touching, and moving to man's spirit, at that trying moment, as the wondrous utterance of the old inspired law-giver: "Lord, You have been our dwelling place." "Lord, You are our home." I want to draw from these words two thoughts that may do the readers of this paper some good. An English home is famous all over the world for its happiness and comfort. It is a little bit of heaven left upon the earth. But even an English home is not forever. The family nest is sure to taken down, and its residents are sure to be scattered. Bear with me for a few short minutes, while I try to set before you the best, truest, and happiest home. 1. The first thought that I will offer to you is this: I will show you what the world is. I freely admit that it is a beautiful world in many respects. Its seas and rivers, its sunrises and sunsets, its mountains and valleys, its harvests and its forests, its fruits and its flowers, its days and its nights, all, all are beautiful in their way. Cold and unfeeling must be the heart which never finds a day in the year when it can admire anything in nature! But beautiful as the world is, there are many things in it to remind us that it is not home. It is an inn, a tent, a tabernacle, a lodging, a training school. But it is not home. (a) It is a changing world. Everything around us is continually moving, altering, and passing away. Families, properties, landlords, tenants, farmers, laborers, tradesmen, all are continually on the move. To find the same name in the same dwelling, for three generations running is so uncommon, that it is the exception and not the rule. A world so full of change cannot be called home. (b) It is a trying and disappointing world. Whoever lives to be fifty years old has paid the cost and knows it to be true. Trials in married life and trials in single life—trials with children and trials with brothers and sisters—trials in money matters and trials in health—how many they are! Their name is legion. And not one-tenth of them ever comes to light. Indeed, there are few families which do not have "a skeleton in the closet." A world so full of trial and disappointment cannot be called home. (c) It is a dying world. Death is continually around us and near us, and meets us at every turn. Few are the family gatherings, when Christmas comes around, in which there are not some empty chairs and vacant places. Few are the men and women, nearing middle age, who could not number a long list of names, deeply cut forever in their hearts—names of beloved ones now dead and gone. Where are our fathers and mothers? Where are our ministers and teachers? Where are our brothers and sisters? Where are our husbands and wives? Where are our neighbors and friends? Where are the old grey-headed worshipers, whose reverent faces we remember so well when we first came to church? Where are the boys and girls we played with when we went to school? How many must reply, "Dead, dead, dead! The daisies are growing over their graves, and we are left alone." Surely a world so full of death can never be called a home. (d) It is a scattering and dividing world. Families are continually breaking up, and going in different directions. How rarely do the members of a family ever meet together again, after the surviving parent is laid in the grave! The band of union seems snapped, and nothing welds it again. The cement seems withdrawn from the parts of the building, and the whole principle of cohesion is lost. How often some miserable squabble about trinkets, or some wretched wrangle about money, makes a breach that is never healed, and, like a crack in china, though riveted can never be cured! Indeed, rarely do those who played in the same nursery lie down in graves in the same churchyard, or keep peace with one another till they die. A world so full of division can never be home. These are ancient things. It is useless to be surprised at them. They are the bitter fruit of sin, and the sorrowful consequence of the fall. Change, trial, death, and division, all entered into the world when Adam and Eve sinned. We must not murmur. We must not fret. We must not complain. We must accept the situation in which we find ourselves. We must each do our best to lighten the sorrows, and increase the comforts of our position. We must steadily resolve to make the best of everybody and everything around us. But we must never, never, never, forget that the world is not home. Are you young? Does everything around and before you seem bright, and cheerful, and happy? Do you secretly think in your own mind that I take too gloomy a view of the world? Be careful. You will not say that as time goes by. Be wise. Learn to moderate your expectations. Depend on it, the less you expect from people and things here below the happier you will be. Are you prosperous in the world? Have death, and sickness, and disappointment, and poverty, and family troubles, passed over your door up to this time, and not come in? Are you secretly saying to yourself, "Nothing can hurt me much. I will die quietly in my bed, and see no sorrow." Be careful. You are not yet in the harbour. A sudden storm of unexpected trouble may make you change your tune. Do not set your affection on things below. Hold them with a very loose hand, and be ready to surrender them at a moment's notice. Use your prosperity well while you have it; but do not lean all your weight on it, lest it break suddenly and pierce your hand.