Charity and Good Understanding are also Necessary.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 43, 31 July 1891, Page 3

Charity and Good Understanding are also Necessary.

But the Church, with Jesus Christ for its Master and Guide, aims higher still. It lays down precepts yet more perfect, and tries to bind class to class in friendliness and good understanding- The things of this earth cannot be understood or valued rightly without taking into consideration the life to come, the life that will last for ever. Exclude the idea of futurity, and the very notion of what is good and right would perish ; nay, the whole system of the universe would become a dark and unfathomable mystery. The great truth which we learn from Nature herselt is also the grand Christian dogma on which Religion rests as on its base — and when we have done with this present life, then we shall really begin to live. God has not created us for the perishable and transitory things of earth, but for things heavenly and everlasting ; He has given us this world as a place of exile, and not as our true country. Money, and the other things which men call good and desirable — we may have them in abundance, or we may want them altogether ; as far as eternal happiness is concerned, it is no matter ; the only thing that is important is to use them aright. Jesus Christ, when He redeemed us with plentiful redemption, took not away the pains and sorrows which in such large proportion make up the texture of our mortal life; He transformed them into motives of virtue and occasions of merit ; and no man can hope for eternal reward unless he follow in the blood-stained footprints of his Saviour. If we suffer with Him, we shallalso reign with Him.f His labours and His sufferings, accepted by His own free will, have marvellously sweetened all suffering and all labour. And not only by His example, but by His grace and by the hope of everlasting recompense, He has made pain and grief more easy to endure; for that which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation, worketh for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory. %