Eternity in Christian preaching highlights the unending nature of life beyond death, emphasizing the everlasting consequences of earthly choices and the hope found in Christ's salvation (Ecclesiastes 3:11, Matthew 25:46). Illustrations often use imagery of endless journeys, timeless realms, or moments of revelation to convey the urgency of readiness and the certainty of future judgment.
An infidel haunted by eternity finds hope beyond doubt and unbelief.
In London, when I was there in 1867, I was told a story which made a very deep impression upon me. A young French nobleman came there to see a doctor, bringing letters from the French Emperor. The Emperor Napoleon III. had a great regard for this young man, and the doctor wanted to save him. He examined the young man, and saw there was something on his mind. "Have you lost any property? What is troubling you? You have something weighing upon your mind," said the doctor. "Oh, there is nothing particular." "I know better; have you lost any relations?" asked the doctor. "No, none within the last three years." "Have you lost any reputation in your country?" "No." The doctor studied for a few minutes, and then said, "I must know what is on your mind; I must know what is troubling you." And the young man said, "My father was an infidel; my grandfather was an infidel, and I was brought up an infidel, and for the last three years these words have haunted me, 'Eternity, and where shall it find me?'" "Ah," said the doctor, "you have come to the wrong physician." "Is there no hope for me?" cried the young man. "I walk about in the day time; I lie down at night, and it comes upon me continually: 'Eternity, and where shall I spend it?' Tell me, is there any hope for me?" The doctor said: "Now just sit down and be quiet. A few years ago I was an infidel. I did not believe in God, and was in the same condition in which you are in." The doctor took down his Bible and turned to the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah and read: "He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed." And he read on through this chapter.
When he had finished, the young man said: "Do you believe this, that He voluntarily left heaven, came down to this earth, and suffered and died that we might be saved?" "Yes, I believe it. That brought me out of infidelity, out of darkness into light." And he preached Christ and His salvation and told him of heaven and then suggested that they get down on their knees and pray. And when I went there in 1867 a letter had been received from that young nobleman, who wrote to Dr. Whinston in London, telling him that the question of "eternity, and where he should spend it" was settled, and troubled him no more. My friends, the question of eternity, and where we are going to spend it, forces itself upon everyone of us. We are staying here for a little day. Our life is but a fibre and it will soon be snapped. I may be preaching my last sermon. To-night may find me in eternity. By the grace of God say that you will spend it in heaven.
Leaving earthly life for heaven reveals the surpassing joy and beauty of the eternal world.
If a child had been born, and spent all his life, in the Mammoth Cave, how impossible would it be for him to comprehend the upper world! Parents might tell him of its life, its light, its beauty, and its sounds of joy; they might heap up the sands into mounds, and try to show him by stalactites how grass, flowers, and trees grow out of the ground; till at length, with laborious thinking, the child would fancy he had gained a true idea of the unknown land: and yet, though he longed to behold it, when it came that he was to go forth, it would be with regret for the familiar crystals and rock-hewn rooms, and the quiet that reigned therein. But when he came up some May morning, with ten thousand birds singing in the trees, and the heavens bright and blue, and full of sunlight, and the wind blowing softly through the young leaves, all a glitter with dew, and the landscape stretching away green and beautiful to the horizon, with what rapture would he gaze about him, and see how poor were all the fancyings and interpretations which were made within the cave of the things which grew and lived without! and how he would wonder that he could ever have regretted to leave the silence and dreary darkness of his old abode! So, when we emerge from this cave of earth into that land where spring-growths are, and where is eternal summer, how shall we wonder that we could have clung so fondly to this dark and barren life! Beecher.
Earthly life is fleeting and transient, urging focus on eternal heavenly realities.
Like the bubble that is blown, and that, when the rays of light fall on it, glitters in all the colors of the rainbow, but, whilst we gaze, bursts, and is no more; like the gourd, which casts its cooling shade against the vehement noontide heat, but, ere the next day's sun, has utterly withered away; like the flower, that blooms and sheds its fragrance in the morning, but in the evening its beauty and its odor are gone; like the shadow that flings itself for a moment across our path, and then declineth; like a vapor, that appeareth, and is quickly dissipated, and we see it no more: so rapidly the things that are beneath consume and flee away. Oh! "what shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue!" No! shadows we are not, "though shadows we pursue." Oh! let us elevate our thoughts from time to eternity, and transfer our affections from earth to heaven. Dr. Beaumont.
Even long-lasting earthly achievements can be suddenly destroyed, illustrating final judgment.
Three thousand years and more ago, a proud Egyptian king returned to his capital from a great victory. To celebrate the event, he ordered a sculptor to portray the scene in the hardest stone. It was finished at last, after great expense and labor. The figures would look absurd enough to our eyes; but no doubt they were greatly admired in their own day. This block of sculptured stone withstood the wasting power of time for thousands of years, and at last attracted the attention of a learned and enthusiastic antiquarian, — Mr. Abbott of New York. With great pains, he succeeded in removing it from its resting-place; and then, after the perils of a long sea-voyage, it was landed safely on our shores. How wonderful it seemed that such a work of art should endure for so many ages! Now it seemed probable that it might last a great many more in the museum for which it was destined; but, just as it reached its final resting-place, a careless carman tumbled it roughly on the pavement, and the block was shivered into hundreds of fragments. This, then, was the end for which it had been saved so long.
— Christian Banner
Earthly pleasures are fleeting compared to eternal life and praise to God.
Theodorus was a Christian young man in Egypt, who withdrew from the feasting and music of his father's house to meditate. "Here," he thought, "is content and delight enough for the flesh. I may have what I desire; but how long will this last? This will not hold out long." Then he prayed, "O Lord! let me not die eternally; let me live eternally to praise thee!" His mother persuaded him to return to the company, with the excuse that it could not hold out long. Men should reason: "I am now in the midst of temporal enjoyments; but will they hold out long? I was made to abide forever. What are a few hours here? If years, they are nothing to eternity." Those that abide longest in health and prosperity—their time is but a bubble; they are gone, and the memory of them is perished. Xenophilus, in Pliny, lived a hundred and five years; but what is that to eternity?
Every day brings us closer to death and the eternal judgment that follows.
"Whence, my brethren, do you derive your confidence that your dying day is so remote? From your youth?"—"Yes," you reply: "I am as yet only twenty, thirty years old."—"Ah! you completely deceive yourselves. No: it is not that you have advanced twenty or thirty years, but that death has gained twenty or thirty years upon you. God has given you thirty years of grace, by suffering you to live: you are his debtor for these years; and they have brought you so much the nearer to that term when death awaits you. Take heed, then! Eternity already marks upon your brow the fatal instant in which it will begin for you. Eternity! Ah! know you what it is? It is a timepiece, whose pendulum speaks incessantly, repeats two words only, in the silence of the tomb,—'Ever, never: never, ever, and forever.' During these fearful vibrations, a reprobate cries out, 'What is the hour?' And a voice of a fellow-wretch replies, 'Eternity!'" Bridaine.
In eternity, our true purified character will be fully revealed and unified.
Before the sun has climbed above the horizon, all objects on earth are blended in one common indistinct gray hue: you can just discern their difference of form. The sun rises, color appears, outlines define themselves, variety and time are born at once. Before, there was only a dull monotony; now, there is harmony. The life to come has a similar marvel in reserve. At the first ray of its light, our true characters, purified, but preserving their identity, will more fully expand; and the result of the infinite diversity will be a complete unity.
Madame de Gasparin.
Eternity is unimaginably long, far beyond any earthly measure of time.
By constant rubbing, earth, stone, and even iron, is at last worn away; but what time it would take to wear away a rock, an entire mountain, by rubbing it merely with the finger! Well, if a lost soul were told, "God is going to change into steel the earth, with all that composes it, such as stones, trees, rocks, mountains, &c.: he will afterwards permit an ant to come once every hundred years on that enormous globe of polished steel, and when that little animal shall have succeeded in wearing it all away, merely by passing over it, eternity shall be ended"—can you even imagine the millions of ages it would take that ant to wear away even the thickness of a knife-blade? And what is a knife-blade to the thickness of a mountain? to the whole earth? If one said to a soul, "When that incredible task shall have been finished by the ant, your eternity shall be ended," it would be a mistake: its eternity would be only commencing. Ah!
well might one say, "Think of thy last end, and thou shalt never sin."
Martyrs valued eternal glory over temporal riches or rewards.
When there were several attempts made upon Luther to draw him back again to the Romish side, one proposed a sum of money to be offered unto him. "No, that will not do," says another; "that German beast cares not for money, nor any temporal thing whatsoever:" and so they ceased any further tampering that way. Such was the Christian resolution of those forty martyrs under the persecution of Licinius the emperor, A.D. 300, that when Agricolaus, his chief governor, and one of the Devil's prime agents, set upon them by several ways to renounce Christ, and at last tempted them with money and preferments, they all cried out with one consent, "O eternity, eternity! give money that may last forever, and glory that may never fade away." Spencer.
Eternity is the infinite lifetime of the Almighty beyond all limits.
A pupil of the Deaf and Dumb Institution of Paris was asked, "What is eternity?" and replied, "It is the lifetime of the Almighty."
Eternity is infinite duration without beginning, succession, or end.
Eternity is infinite duration; duration discharged from all limits, without beginning, without succession, and without end. The schoolmen phrase it punctum stans, "an ever-abiding present." We, however, can positively conceive of eternity only as duration indefinitely extended from the present moment in two directions, — as to the past, and as to the future. These are improperly expressed as eternity a parte ante, or past; and eternity a parte post, or future.
— A. A. Hodge
Eternity in torment is an unending, dreadful reality beyond human comprehension.
Oh that I was to lie upon the fire that never is quenched a thousand years, to purchase the favor of God, and be reconciled to him again! But it is a fruitless wish. Millions of millions of years will bring me no nearer to the end of my torment than one poor hour. O eternity, eternity! Who can discover the abyss of eternity? Who can paraphrase upon these words, "for ever and ever"? Francis Newport.
Human lifespans and history are but brief points compared to the vastness of eternity.
When I endeavor to represent eternity, I avail myself of whatever I can conceive most long and durable. I heap imagination upon imagination, conjecture upon conjecture. First, I consider those long lives which all men wish, and some attain. I do more: I turn to ancient chronicles. I go back to the patriarchal age, and consider life extending through a thousand years; and I say to myself, "All this is not eternity: all this is only a point in comparison of eternity!" Having represented to myself real objects, I form ideas of imaginary ones. I go from our age to the time of publishing the gospel; from thence to the publication of the law; from the law to the flood; from the flood to the creation; I join this epoch to the present time; and I imagine Adam yet living. Had Adam lived till now, and had he lived in misery, had he passed all his time in a fire or on a rack, what idea must we form of his condition? At what price would we agree to expose ourselves to misery so great? What imperial glory would appear glorious, were it followed by so much woe? Yet this is not eternity: all this is nothing in comparison of eternity! I go farther still, I proceed from one supposition to another. I take the greatest number of years that can be imagined; I add ages to ages, millions of ages to millions of ages; I form of all these one fixed number, and I stay my imagination. After this, I suppose God to create a world like this which we inhabit; I suppose him creating it by forming one atom after another, and employing, in the production of each atom, the time fixed in my calculation just now mentioned. What numberless ages would the creation of such a world in such a manner require! Then I suppose the Creator to arrange these atoms, and to pursue the same plan of arranging them as of creating them. What numberless ages would such an arrangement require? Finally, I suppose him to dissolve and annihilate the whole, and, observing the same method in this dissolution as he observed in the creation and disposition of the whole, what an immense duration would be consumed! Yet this is not eternity: all this is only a point in comparison of eternity!
A Christian facing death is encouraged by hope of eternal life and heaven.
ETERNITY, Gala of Symphorianus, a Christian young man, as he was dragged to death at Augustodunum, met his mother upon the way, carrying herself like an heroic Christian lady. She called to her son, and said, "Son! my son, I say, remember life eternal; look up to heaven; lift up thine eye to Him that reigneth there: life is not taken from thee, but exchanged for a better." At which words of his mother, the young man was so exceedingly animated, that he went willingly to execution, and cheerfully laid down his head upon the block, and was beheaded.
All creation moves inevitably forward toward the endless ocean of eternity.
The wheels of Nature are not made to roll backward: every thing presses on towards eternity. From the birth of time, an impetuous current has set in, which bears all the sons of men towards that interminable ocean.
Life’s trivialities contrast with the noble hope of eternal happiness in another world.
What is life but a circulation of little mean actions? We spend the day in trifles; and, when the night comes, we throw ourselves into the bed of folly, among dreams and broken thoughts, and wild imaginations. Our reason lies asleep by us; and we are for the time errant brutes as those that sleep in the stalls or in the field. Are not the capacities of man higher than these? and ought not his ambitions and expectations to be greater? Let us be adventurers for another world. It is at least a fair and noble chance; and there is nothing in this worth our thoughts or our passions. If we should be disappointed, we are still no worse than the rest of our fellow-mortals; and, if we succeed in our expectations, we are eternally happy.
— Burnet
Eternity is infinite and cannot be exhausted, unlike our transient world.
An old writer says, "Suppose a little bird is set to remove this globe by taking from it one grain of sand at a time, and to come only once in a thousand years. She takes her first grain, and away she flies on her long and weary course; and long, long, are the days ere she returns again. It will doubtless seem to many as if she never would return; but, when a thousand years have rolled away, she comes panting back for one more grain of sand: and this globe is again lessened by just one grain of its almost countless sands. So the work goes on; so eternity wears away,—only it does not exhaust itself a particle. That little bird will one day have finished her task, and the last sand will have been taken away; but even then eternity will have only begun. Its sands are never to be exhausted. One would suppose that the angels would become so old, so hoary with the weight of centuries, and every being so old, they would be weary of life; but this supposing only shows that we are judging of the effects of time in that eternal state by its observed effect in this transient world. But we fail to consider that God made this world for a transient life; that for one that shall never pass away. Taking up again our figure of the little bird removing the sands of our globe, we may extend it, and suppose, that, after she had finished this world, she takes up successfully the other planets of our system,—Mercury, and Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Herschel, each and all on the same law,—one grain each thousand years, and, when these are all exhausted, then the sun, and then each of the fixed stars, until the hundreds of thousands of those stupendous orbs are all removed and gone. But even then eternity is not exhausted. We have not yet even an approximation towards its end. End?—there is no end! That poor old bird makes progress. Though exceedingly slow, she will one day have done her appointed task; but she will not even then have come any nearer to the end of eternity. Eternity!—who can compute it? No finite mind; and yet this idea is not fiction, but sober fact. There is no possible room for mistake, no ground for doubt."
Man stands uncertain between two eternities, unable to fully comprehend his origin or destiny.
Alas! what is man, whether he be deprived of that light which is from on high, or whether he discard it? A frail and trembling creature, standing on Time, that bleak and narrow isthmus between two eternities, he sees nothing but impenetrable darkness on the one hand, and doubt, distrust, and conjecture still more perplexing, on the other. Most gladly would he take an observation as to whence he has come, or whither he is going. Alas! he has not the means: his telescope is too dim, his compass too wavering, his plummet too short. Nor is that little spot, his present state, one whit more intelligible, since it may prove a quicksand that may sink in a moment from his feet: it can afford him no certain reckoning as to that immeasurable ocean that he may have traversed, or that still more formidable one that he must. Colton.
Even vast periods are insignificant compared to the boundlessness of eternity.
Suppose, after one of our most violent snow-storms, which covers the earth for thousands of miles, one single flake were melted in a thousand years; or if a single beam of the sun's rays stood for a year, and as many years were added as there have been rays flooding the earth since the sun began to shine; or if a single drop of the ocean were exhaled in a million years, till the last drop was taken up, — though we cannot conceive the duration of such apparently almost interminable periods, yet though we could, eternity would stretch as far beyond them as if they had not yet begun. Beecher.
Contemplating eternal happiness with the Lord fills the mind with awe and energy.
An eminent minister, after being silent in company a considerable time, and being asked the reason, signified that the powers of his mind had been solemnly absorbed with the thought of everlasting happiness. "Oh! my friends," said he, with an energy that surprised all present, "consider what it is to be forever with the Lord, — forever, forever, forever."
Eternity consists of three parts: before creation, the present age, and everlasting life.
There are three times, if times they may be called, or parts of eternity: the first, the time before beginnings, when the Godhead was only, without the being of any creature; the second, the time of the mystery, which continueth from the creation to the dissolution of the world; and the third, the time of the revelation of the sons of God, which time is the last, and is everlasting, without change. Lord Bacon.
A fool neglects to prepare for eternity, highlighting the urgency of readiness for the afterlife.
There was a certain nobleman who kept a fool, to whom he one day gave a staff, with a charge to keep it till he should meet with one who was a greater fool than himself. Not many years after, the nobleman fell sick, even unto death. The fool came to see him. His sick lord said to him, "I must shortly leave you."—"And whither are you going?" said the fool. "Into another world," replied his lordship. "And when will you return? within a month?"—"No."—"Within a year?"—"No."—"When, then?"—"Never!"—"Never?" said the fool. "And what provision hast thou made for thy entertainment there, whither thou goest?"—"None at all."—"No!" said the fool; "none at all! Here, then, take my staff; for, with all my folly, I am not guilty of any folly such as this."
P.p. Holt.
Eternity is a progressive, ever-increasing experience of glory and beauty.
Eternity will be one glorious morning, with the sun ever climbing higher and higher; one blessed spring-time, and yet vicher summer, — every plant in full flower, but every flower the bud of a lovelier. Melvill.
The reality of eternity determines the ultimate fate of every soul.
A profligate young man, as an aged hermit passed by him, barefoot, called out after him, "Father, what a miserable condition you are in if there be not another world after this!"—"True, my son," replied the anchorite; "but what will thine be, if there be?"
Eternity demands serious reflection on God's presence and our eternal destiny.
It is said that there is a parish in Savoy, that has the following placard in every house: "Understand well the force of the words: A God, a moment, an eternity,—a God who sees thee, a moment which flees from thee, an eternity which awaits thee; a God, whom you serve so ill; a moment, of which you so little profit; an eternity, which you hazard so rashly."
God's eternal existence far surpasses all measures of time and defines our own immortality.
Add together ages of ages, multiply them by the leaves on the trees, the sand on the seashore, and the dust of the earth; still you will be no nearer the termination of Jehovah's existence than when you first began your calculation. And let us remember that the duration of his existence is the only measure of our own. As it respects futurity, we are all as immortal as Jehovah himself. Dr. Payson.
Church leaders are exhorted to keep eternity constantly in their thoughts.
In the consecration service of the primitive Church, the candidate for the office of a bishop was exhorted to have eternity in all his thoughts. Once, on an occasion of the inauguration of an archbishop of Canterbury, the people, standing on either side, as he passed, cried, "Remember eternity."
Facing death, a believer discards time, focusing solely on eternity.
Lord William Russell, when he was on the scaffold, about to be beheaded, took his watch from his pocket, and gave it to Dr. Burnett, who was attending him, with the remark, "My timepiece may be of service to you. I have no further occasion for it. My thoughts are fixed on eternity."
Awareness of eternity leads a woman to repentance and desire for readiness.
A lady having spent an afternoon and evening at cards and in gay company, when she returned home, found her servant-maid reading a pious book. She looked over her shoulder, and said, "Poor melancholy soul! what pleasure canst thou find in poring so long over that book?" That night, she could not sleep, but lay sighing and weeping very much; and her servant twice asked her what was the matter. At length she burst into tears, and said, "Oh! it is one word I saw in your book that troubles me. There I saw that word 'eternity!' Oh! how happy should I be if I were prepared for eternity!" This led her to seek earnestly to be ready for the eternal world.
An artist works carefully because he creates for eternity.
Apelles the Grecian painter, when asked why he touched and retouched his pictures with so much care, answered, "Because I paint for eternity."
Pursuing earthly wealth over spiritual nourishment leads to ruin.
A ship bearing a hundred emigrants has been driven from her course, and wrecked on a desert island, far from the tracks of man. There is no way of escape; but there are means of subsistence. An ocean, unvisited by ordinary voyagers, circles round their prison; but they have seed, with a rich soil to receive, and a genial climate to ripen it. Ere any plan has been laid, or any operations begun, an exploring-party returns to headquarters, reporting the discovery of a gold mine. Thither instantly the whole party resort to dig. They labor, successfully, day by day, and month after month. They acquire and accumulate large heaps of gold. But spring is past, and not a field has been cleared, nor a grain of seed committed to the ground. The summer comes, and their wealth increases; but the store of food is small. In harvest they begin to discover that their heaps of gold are worthless. When famine stares them in the face, a suspicion shoots across their fainting hearts that the gold has cheated them. They rush to the woods, fell the trees, dig the roots, till the ground, sow the seed. It is too late! Winter has come; and their seed rots in the ground. They die of want in the midst of their treasures. This earth is the little isle, eternity the ocean round it: on this shore we have been cast. There is a living seed; but gold mines attract us. We spend spring and summer there; winter overtakes us toiling there, destitute of the bread of life, forgetting that we ought to "seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto us." Rev. W. Arnot.
Gold endures physically, but spiritual riches endure eternally.
For a foundation, men prefer rock to sand, because it is durable; and, to this property, gold itself owes much of its value. It does not melt like ice, nor rust like iron, nor burn like wood, nor crumble into dust like stone. On opening the grave of an old Etruscan king, they found him lying robed and crowned as his warriors had entombed him two thousand years before. An impressive spectacle I but one they had hardly seen when it vanished from their sight. Touched by the fresh air admitted at the open door, body and robes dissolved in a moment, leaving nothing where they had lain but a thin layer of dust. Not so the golden fillet that bound his brows: of all that funeral pomp, it only remains unchanged. Not time, nor even fire itself, destroys this precious metal: the flames may cleanse, but they cannot consume it. They esteem themselves happy who have their coffers filled with it; but how much happier those who have obtained 'what the Spirit counsels men to buy,'—"gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich"!
Heaven is very near, separated from us only by a thin, fragile veil of mortality.
The nearness of heaven is suggested by the epithet "veil." Christians, there is only a veil between us and heaven! A veil is the thinnest and frailest of all conceivable partitions. It is but a fine tissue, a delicate fabric of embroidery. It waves in the wind; the touch of a child may stir it, and accident may rend it; the silent action of time will moulder it away. The veil that conceals heaven is only our embodied existence; and, though fearfully and wonderfully made, it is only wrought out of our frail mortality. So slight is it, that the puncture of a thorn, the touch of an insect's sting, the breath of an infected atmosphere, may make it shake and fall. In a bound, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, in the throb of a pulse, in the flash of a thought, we may start into disembodied spirits, glide unabashed into the company of great and mighty angels, pass into the light and amazement of eternity, know the great secret, gaze upon splendors which flesh and blood could not sustain, and which no words lawful for man to utter could describe! Brethren in Christ, there is but a step between you and death; between you and heaven there is but a veil! C. Stanford.
Impressions on the soul endure after death, shaping eternal experience.
It is said, that, by a certain experiment, you may perceive on the retina of an ox's eye, some time after death, the pictures of the objects upon which it last looked. If this is true of the eye of the ox, what shall we say of the soul of man?—if on the eye impressions are made which abide after death, what of the impressions made upon the conscience, the memory, and the whole retina, of the immortal spirit? Surely, these abide after death. Is it possible ever to erase one? Do not all impressions, from the first to the last, through life, made in all ways, continue as immortal as the soul itself? Surely, we undying ones ought to be careful upon what objects we look, from which to get impressions upon our souls. The impressions made on the soul in time will form its own picture-gallery, upon each of which it shall gaze through the boundless ages of eternity. Baie.
Life is a swift journey through time, moving us inevitably toward eternity.
This world is turning round on its axis once in four and twenty hours; and, besides that, it is moving round the sun in the three hundred and sixty-five days of the year. So that we are all moving: we are all flitting along through space. And as we are travelling through space, so we are moving through time at an incalculable rate. Oh! what an idea it is could we grasp it! We are all being carried along as if by a giant angel, with broad outstretched wings, which he flaps to the blast, and, flying before the lightning, makes us ride on the winds. The whole multitude of us are hurrying along, — whither, remains to be decided by the test of our faith and the grace of God; but certain it is, we are all travelling. Your pulses each moment beat the funeral-marches to the tomb. You are chained to the chariot of rolling time. There is no bridling the steeds, or leaping from the chariot: you must be constantly in motion.
— Spurgeon
Teachers' work, though small, has eternal significance reaching to heaven.
A certain philosopher was always talking very much to his friends about the garden in which he was in the habit of walking, and where he carried on his studies. At length, one of them came to see him; and he found this extraordinary garden was a patch of ground about twice the size of the floor of his own room. "What!" said he, "is this your garden? It's not very broad."—"No," said the philosopher, "it's not very broad; but it's a wondrous height!" And so I would say to you, Sunday-school teachers: your work in your class is not a very large one; but it's a wondrous height. It goes up to heaven: to conceive of it aright, it goes right out to eternity.
— Scottish S. S. Teachers' Magazine
Near death, memories vividly recall life, illustrating the soul's enduring nature.
It is a well-known fact, that persons who have been rescued from drowning have had the most wonderful activity and power given to their memories just before they became insensible; so that in a moment of time their whole lives have been photographed, as it were, and held up before them. They have lived over years of time in a single moment. Every one can recall periods when a measure of the same activity has been given to memory, and when the leaves of the past have been unfolded with a rapidity scarcely before conceived of, and when revelations have been made of what seemed buried in oblivion, so utterly had it passed away from the mind. Some simple association, a familiar voice, a strain of music, an incident recalled, or even a state of mind, is sufficient to vivify the dead past. The extent to which the memory is capable of recalling the past, even when it seemed utterly forgotten, is illustrated by many a curious chapter of facts. One of the most striking is that of an illiterate servant-girl, who, in the delirium of a fever, astonished all who were about her by repeating long passages from Greek and Latin authors, with which it was well known she had no ordinary acquaintance. The mystery was solved by learning that she had once been at service in the family of a learned clergyman, who was in the habit of reading aloud from his favorite authors; portions of which she had heard, but without any knowledge of the meaning of what she heard. The mere sound of the words had so impressed itself upon her memory, that the delirium of the fever, like the chemicals applied to the daguerrotype-plate, brought out the impression as distinct and clear as at first. Thornton.
Ancient ruins show that human works are temporary and will not last forever.
A party of surveyors in Arizona, engaged in exploring the country for railroad-routes, lately came upon some very extensive ruins on the banks of the Little Colorado River. They extend along the river for many miles. Some of the walls of buildings are yet in place, and stand six or eight feet high. The streets may be traced for miles. The old irrigating canals and ditches are yet in a fair state of preservation, and may be traced for miles also. The ground is strewed with broken crockery. The party found some nearly whole vessels of curious form. Many of the walls of the buildings were built of hewn stone, and put up in a workmanlike manner. To all appearance, here once stood a city of many thousand inhabitants. Who they were, or to what tribes they belonged, there is no record left to show. On the east bank are the ruins of a large structure or castle, covering several acres of land: some of the walls are yet standing to the height of twenty or thirty feet.
No wealth or power can buy even a moment of time at death for repentance.
"Millions of money for an inch of time," cried Elizabeth—the gifted, but ambitious queen of England, upon her dying bed. Unhappy woman! reclining upon a couch—with ten thousand dresses in her wardrobe—a kingdom on which the sun never sets, at her feet—all now are valueless, and she shrieks in anguish, and she shrieks in vain, for a single "inch of time." She had enjoyed threescore and ten years. Like too many among us, she had devoted them to wealth, to pleasure, to pride, and ambition, so that her whole preparation for eternity was crowded into a few moments! and hence she, who had wasted more than half a century, would barter millions for an inch of time.
A deaf boy defined eternity as the lifetime of the Almighty, showing simple faith.
The following question was put in writing to a boy in the deaf and dumb school at Paris: "What is eternity?" He wrote as an answer, "It is the life-time of the Almighty."
The word 'eternity' can deeply trouble and awaken a person to their spiritual need.
A lady, having spent the afternoon and evening at cards and in gay company, when she came home, found her servant-maid reading a pious book. She looked over her shoulders and said, "Poor melancholy soul! what pleasure canst thou find in poring so long over that book?" That night the lady could not sleep, but lay sighing and weeping very much. Her servant asked her once and again what was the matter. At length she burst out into a flood of tears, and said, "Oh! it is one word I saw in your book that troubles me: there I saw that word eternity. Oh how happy should I be if I were prepared
### 165. ETIQUETTE, U
A sign warns of God's presence, fleeting moments, and the eternal consequences of life.
A MOMENT—AN ETERNITY.—How sad it is that an eternity so solemn and so near us should impress us so slightly and should be so much forgotten! A Christian traveller tells us, that he saw the following religious admonition on the subject of eternity printed on a folio sheet, and hanging in a public room of an inn in Savoy; and it was placed, he understood, in every house in the parish:—"Understand well the force of the words—a God, a moment, an eternity. A God who sees thee, a moment which flies from thee, an eternity which awaits thee. A God whom you serve so ill, a moment of which you so little profit, an eternity which you hazard so rashly."
# UNDUE REGARD TO.
apartment, because it was against the etiquette. At length the Marquis de Pota appeared, and the king ordered him to damp the fires; but he excused himself, alleging that he was forbidden by the etiquette to perform such a function, for which the Duke d'Usseda ought to be called upon, as it was his business. The duke was gone out, the fire burned fiercer, and the king endured it rather than derogate from his dignity; but his blood was heated to such a degree; that an erysipelas of the head appeared the next day, which, succeeded by a violent fever, carried him off in 1621, in the twenty-fourth year of his age.
The palace was once on fire; a soldier, who knew the king's sister was in her apartment, and must inevitably have been consumed in a few moments by the flames, at the risk of his life rushed in, and brought her highness safe out in his arms; but the Spanish etiquette was here wofully broken into! The loyal soldier was brought to trial, and as it was impossible to deny that he had entered her apartment, the judges condemned him to die! The Spanish princess, however, condescended, in consideration of the circumstances, to pardon the soldier, and very benevolently saved his life!
Earthly honors are useless in the afterlife where eternal realities matter.
A distinguished character had an extraordinary mark of distinction and honor sent him by his prince as he lay on his death-bed. "Alas!" said he, looking coldly upon it, "this is a mighty fine thing in this country; but I am just going to a country where it will be of no service to me."
