Can we quote the authority of Jesus for thoughts like these? The point
is, let it be noted, not whether we shall know each other again beyond
death, but whether we shall be to each other what we were here. At the
foot of the white marble cross which his wife placed upon the grave of
Charles Kingsley are graven these three words: _Amavimus, Amamus,
Amabimus_ ("We have loved, we love, we shall love"). After Mrs.
Browning's death her husband wrote these lines from Dante in her
Testament: "Thus I believe, thus I affirm, thus I am certain it is, that
from this life I shall pass to another better, there, where that lady
lives, of whom my soul was enamoured." Will Christ counter-sign a hope
like this? I do not know any "proof-text" that can be quoted, yet it
were profanation to think otherwise. There are many flowers of time, we
know, which cannot be transplanted; but "love never faileth," love is
the true _immortelle_. And whatever changes death may bring, those who
have been our nearest here shall be our nearest there. And though, as I
say, we can quote no "proof-text," our faith may find its guarantee in
the great word of Jesus: "If it were not so, I would have told you."
This is one of the instincts of the Christian heart, as pure and good as
it is firm and strong. Since Christ let it pass unchallenged, may we not
claim His sanction for it? If it were not so, He would have told us.
II
I turn now to the reverse side of Christ's teaching concerning the
future. And let us not seek to hide from ourselves the fact that there
_is_ a reverse side. For, ignore it as we may, the fact remains: those
same holy lips which spoke of a place, "where neither moth nor rust doth
consume," spoke likewise of another place, "where their worm dieth not,
and the fire is not quenched."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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