The Potter and the ClayWinnington Ingram, Arthur F. (Arthur Foley)
Religion
The Potter and the Clay
Winnington Ingram, Arthur F. (Arthur Foley)
Church of England -- Sermons; Sermons, English -- 20th century; World War, 1914-1918 -- Sermons
5. And what sort of life is it going to be on the other side of the
veil, the veil which hides this unseen world? Those young men who
are dying are not always specially religious. They come to church
sometimes, and some come to Communion. I had from the front the
other day an account of how two hundred and fifty of the Artists'
Corps received the Communion before they went into battle. But,
still, we know many of our soldiers are not what we should call
specially religious men. What, therefore, are we to think of the
life awaiting them on the other side of the veil? Well, I will tell
you what I think. I pin my faith to this: JESUS CHRIST knows them
through and through. "JESUS beholding him loved him" was said of
one young man. JESUS beheld all these boys of ours, all these young
comrades, and He loved them. And He knows what kind of life they
will enjoy, and He prepares them for the life that is for them. He
has something for each that they will be fit for, when, strengthened
in character and purified in soul, they are ready to inherit the
kingdom prepared for them. You can trust them with Him, you can
trust your boy to CHRIST, who understands him better than you do.
What shall we have in the other world which will correspond to what
we have here? One thing at least that we shall have is memory.
You remember, in the parable of Dives and Lazarus, Abraham says
to Dives: "Son, remember." "Son, remember." Resolve to lay up
something in your life here to which your thoughts will turn happily
and find pleasure in, in the quiet times beyond death. In that
stillness there must be no bitter quarrels to remember, no bitter
jealousies, no unkindnesses. Make to yourselves, while here, friends
from your use of the mammon of unrighteousness, so that when it
fails those friends may receive you into everlasting habitations.
And then with memory will come love, all the old beautiful love and
friendship which makes us so happy here. But, mark you, the right
kind of love--not lust. "Love is the fulfilling of the law," says
St. John.
"Love comforteth like sunshine after rain,
But Lust's effect is tempest after sun;
Love's gentle spring doth always fresh remain,
Lust's winter comes ere summer half be done."[14]
The two are absolutely different. Love thinks of the interests of
the loved one, and is full of self-control and self-restraint. But
lust only thinks of self, and is unbridled and unrestrained. Love
goes on into the other world.
[14] Shakespeare.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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