"They sin who tell us Love can die;
With life all other passions fly,
All others are but vanity.
In heaven Ambition cannot dwell,
Nor Avarice in the vaults of hell.
Of lust these passions of the earth,
They perish where they have their birth,
But Love is indestructible.
Its holy flame for ever burneth.
From heaven it came, to heaven returneth;
Full oft on earth a troubled guest,
At times deceived, at times oppressed,
In heaven it finds its perfect rest.
It soweth here in toil and care,
But the harvest-time of Love is there."[15]
Therefore cultivate here in your Church life, in your home life, this wonderful, pure, beautiful thing, this love which will last for ever. "They sin who tell us Love can die." And, above all, keep that love pure, absolutely pure and true. Let nothing be substituted for it which calls itself love, but which is not love. Then with this love, this unselfish, disinterested love, the prayer instinct goes on. Do not be afraid of thinking of and praying for your dear boy in Paradise; pray for him. Do you suppose the mother in Paradise ceases to pray for her son here? You know that, in the old beautiful prayers of the Church for her dead, we pray that God will give them eternal rest and peace, and that everlasting light will shine upon them. That prayer instinct that lies so deep here goes on behind the veil. They are praying for us there as we are praying for them here. As St. Augustine says so beautifully, "The Church above loves and helps its pilgrim brothers."
And, then, one thing more must go on—energy and activity of soul. Can you imagine a man like the late Archbishop Temple doing nothing for ever and ever? No. The greatest rest is delightful exercise of the faculties of the soul. And there must be in that other world work for those who have been active here below. Such souls when they are taken from us are being promoted to some work that they are specially fitted to do by the experience which has long worked itself into their souls. I think of two cases of Christians suffering patiently week after week, one for thirteen, the other for fifteen, years. The beautiful patience being worked into their character will be wanted in the other world.
Then, again, man is born for a Church. He is born to worship here in companionship with others. I hope that this church will be every Sunday morning as full as it is now, that you will more and more join in the fellowship of the saints, and that you will more and more learn to love this spiritual home, and to cheer one another on in your spiritual lives, and so be ready, when the time comes, to worship in the other world with angels and archangels, and all the company of heaven. Lift up your heads and the hands that hang down, all ye mourners! For death is not that miserable, terrible thing which some people think it is. We are born into the other world as quietly as we are born into this. And the other life there is full of happiness, full of love, full of joyous and beautiful activities. And so, when we are called upon to die, it will only be a gentle passing from life here to life there, and from the fulness and the happiness of this life to the still deeper fulness and still greater happiness of the life of the world to come.
VIII
THE PEACE OF JERUSALEM[16]
"O pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee."—Ps. cxxii. 6.