Eternity

“ Eternity, eternity!—that is the supreme desire! The thirst of eternity is what is called love among men, and whosoever loves another wishes to eternalize himself in him. Nothing is real that is not eternal. ”

“ In the bowels of love and mercy, let me beg thee to ask thy soul this question, How long will this life and the comforts of it last? Thy soul is immortal, and must never die, but it must have a being somewhere to all eternity. ”

“ But if through thine eternity thou hast been, and art, and wilt be; and to have been is not to be destined to be; and to be is not to have been, or to be destined to be; how does thine eternity exist as a whole forever? ”

“ Eternity is that word which embraces duration without beginning and without end. And that Being whose existence comprehends eternity, is he who only hath immortality, the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God. ”

“ How noble, how sacred, how wonderful is life! A few years, comparably brief as moments, on the mortal plane of existence, to be followed by an endless Eternity, spent in gleaning wisdom and happiness from the rich fields of infinite progression. ”

“ No doubt God is eternal; but can my mind grasp the idea of eternity? Why should I cheat myself with meaningless words? This is what I do understand; before things were—God was; he will be when they are no more, and if all things come to an end he will still endure. ”

“ We have the hunger for eternity in our souls, the thought of eternity in our hearts, the destination for eternity written on our inmost being, and the need to ally ourselves with eternity proclaimed by the most short-lived trifles of time. ”

“ I tried, in my inmost soul, to unravel the mystery, why all should be thus and not otherwise, how God and man, virtue and sin, in and through one another, and how in this entwined knot, now and then the rays of eternity shine down into this temporal world, and how, in one short moment, we feel and experience within us the whole unfathomable eternity, and many thousand thoughts and feelings, of which the smallest in the tittle of time is allowed no place. ”

“ How we exulted and expanded in the belief that eternity would give us all that we could not get in the present, for that was what eternity was for! We should never again be sick or sad or bad. In eternity we should be no longer the puny spawn of monkeys, but beings good and great and glorious as angels. Eternity was full of shining light and serried ranks of singing hosts. Majestic figures from the past walked its wondrous streets and we ourselves walked with them. There was the gleaming of a golden and immortal city, our home at last. ”

“ I want no silent dark eternity in which no world was; for I am a disciple of One who said, 'My Father worketh hitherto.' My sense of eternal order is no longer jarred by the sudden appearance in the universe of a dead, inane substance, foreign to God and spiritual being. ”

“ Oh, how admirable the wisdom that embraces all eternity at once, and contains within itself the whole of immensity, that draws to itself all infinity, in which alone all things possess a kind of eternal being, and eternal life, which, lastly, is without beginning and without end, and is in every respect immutable! ”

“ Look forward into that immense eternity for which thou hast been created, and thankfully acknowledge, that the love thy God bears thee has neither beginning nor end, but reaches from eternity to eternity. ”

“ Who shall hold the heart of man, that it may stand still, and see how eternity ever still-standing, neither past nor to come, uttereth the times past and to come? Can my hand do this, or the hand of my mouth by speech bring about a thing so great? See, I answer him that asketh, "What did God before He made heaven and earth?" ”

“ Ah, brethren! how solemn that makes life; the fleeting moment carries Eternity in its bosom. It passes, and the works pass, but nothing human ever dies, and we bear with us the net results of all the yesterdays into that eternal to-day. ”

“ Let faith now pierce the veil, and see
The glories of eternity.
Born by a new, celestial birth,
Why should I grovel here on earth?
Why grasp at vain and fleeting toys,
So near to heaven's eternal joys? ”

“ Were there not, after earth,
Eternity?{180}
God gives us life to keep.—
And what hath life?—
Love, faith, and care, and sleep,
Where dreams are rife.
Death’s sleep! whose shadows start
The tears in eyes
Of Love, who breaks his heart,
Despairs and dies. ”

“ How short a span there is between life and eternity! There they stood, both in high health and strength, full of the world, and the world's spirit, and yet in how brief a space was one of them to appear before the judgment-seat of God! ”

“ Then I interrogate myself, I reason with myself, and I put to myself the question—If I had for as many ages, and a thousand times as many, undergone torments in that glowing fire which is kindled by the breath of the Lord in his anger to take eternal vengeance, would eternity be at an end? No; and why? Because it is eternity, and eternity is endless. To number up the stars that shine in the heavens, to count the drops of water that compose the sea, to tell the grains of sand that lie upon the shore, is not absolutely impossible ”

“ That will live forever, when the stillness of death rests upon the pulses. That is the great connecting link between time and eternity, and doomed, by the order of nature, to live forever, and the boundless ages of eternity alone can fully develop its faculties, or define its station. ”

“ The practical part of our religion is that which more particularly interests me. Still my mind reflects upon life, death, eternity, knowledge, wisdom, the expansion of the soul, and the knowledge of the Gods that are, that have been, and that are to be. What shall we say? We are lost in the depth of our own thoughts. Suppose we say there was once a beginning to all things, then we must conclude there will undoubtedly be an end. Can eternity be circumscribed? If it can, there is an end of all wisdom, knowledge, power, and glory—all will sink into eternal annihilation. ”

“ Are there, then, more eternities than one? Truly there are, and each one will find his own, either in indescribable joys or in intolerable torments, according as he himself has prepared his eternity during this life. ”

“ Eternity is eternity, and though you die here and now you will go on living somewhere else and hereafter. And it is all very beautiful, this shaking off of the flesh and soaring of the imprisoned spirit. ”

“ So when you have gone through the gates of death, the angels will not ask how you stood with this world; but they will estimate you by your fidelity, your sympathies, the consecration of your life to chat which was true and good. Alone you will go into that eternity, as alone you came into existence. Alone will you tread the path to the throne of God; alone you will be judged; alone will your opportunities come up in review; alone will you carry through eternity the results of the one earthly life you have lived. ”

“ How often do the mists of this material existence obscure the brightness of eternity, our hopes based on faith, the promises given by faith, the everlasting realities, and the immortality of life in God! We are so steeped in lower pleasures that we forget what is higher. It is indeed necessary to bring back men's souls to the warm rays of the divine light, to disperse the clouds that envelop them, and to restore to them the thought of eternity and the desire to rise to heaven. ”

“ One of the deaf and dumb pupils in the institution of Paris, being desired to express his idea of the eternity of the Deity, replied: 'It is duration, without beginning or end; existence, without bounds or dimension; present, without past or future. His eternity is youth, without infancy or old age; life, without birth or death ”

“ Nay, 'tis my opinion, I own, that even the blessedness of that eternity which is the portion of the Deity himself consists in that universal knowledge of all nature which accompanies it; for setting this aside, eternity might be more properly styled an endless duration than an enjoyment of existence. ”

“ Thou art eternal, without beginning or end. Thou embracest, in one point of indivisible eternity, all duration and difference of times. With thee there is no time but that most perfect Now, which answers equally to all time. Thou art to thyself the adequate and most perfect measure of eternity.
4. Because thy excellence, then, is so great, O Lord, as I most firmly believe, I now adore and worship thee with my whole heart, with the greatest humility and reverence ”

“ Whoever will seriously contemplate the past eternity during which the world was not in existence, and the future eternity during which it will not be in existence, will see that it is essentially like a journey, in which the stages are represented by years, the leagues by months, the miles by days, and the steps by moments. ”

“ When I faced eternity in the death of my dear one, that solemn and awe-inspiring consciousness of the eternal destiny of man which lay so long dormant in my heart now came back to me with overwhelming force and vividness. ”

“ Here is the indication of eternity; and as we investigate, as we experience, we come to certitude, we reach larger vision, larger faith. That which endures rises clear above that which appears and passes. ”

“ While the Spirit strives it is the seed-time of eternal life, the embryo of a happy immortality. Sit not down to count the loss of sinful pleasures; receive the Saviour into your heart, and you will have pleasures lasting as eternity—pleasures that leave no sting behind—pleasures that will sustain the soul when on your dying pillow, when the last trumpet shall sound, and the congregated world stand before God. ”

“ The ever-living God of Truth—Love—Grace!
There man can learn to meet Eternity!
Rev. W. Pulling.
’Tis Religion that can give,
Sweetest pleasures while we live;
’Tis Religion must supply
Solid comfort when we die.
After death its joys will be
Lasting as eternity!
Be the living God my friend,
Then my bliss shall never end.
Master.
[488]
REMEMBRANCE. Remember, O Lord, thy tender mercies and thy loving-kindnesses; for they have been ever of old.
Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions; according to thy mercy remember thou me for thy goodness’ sake, O Lord.—Psalm xxv. 6, 7. ”

“ But in those whose contemplations have long been directed to this closing event of life—in whom a profound and deep acquaintance with the thought of eternity, and the sublime enlightenment of a confiding faith, have taken the place of a dark uncertainty, and who also, between the last struggle of organic life and the final pang of dissolution, enjoy for a brief interval the last quickening breath of the departing energy of nature, there death is seen in its bright aspect. ”

“ Now here read with attention as for eternity; though we say this or that, O remember that eternity is home in heaven or in hell. Now if all this is right then remember the- words of the wise man, to remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth. If clouds be full of rain they empty themselves upon the earth, and if the tree fall towards the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall lie; whatsover the hands findeth to do, do it with all thy might, for there is no work or device, or knowledge, or wisdom in the grave, whither thou goest. ”

“ One moment of divine consciousness, or the spiritual understanding of Life and Love, is a foretaste of eternity. This exalted view, continued and retained when the Science of Being is understood, would bridge over, with Life discerned spiritually, the interval of death; and man would be in the full consciousness of his immortality and eternal harmony, where sin, sickness, and death are unknown. Time is a mortal thought, whose divisor is the solar year. Eternity is God's measurement of Soul-filled years. ”

“ Or of the Eternal coeternal beam May I express thee unblamed? since God is light, And never but in unapproachèd light Dwelt from eternity—dwelt then in thee, Bright effluence of bright essence increate! Or hear'st thou rather pure Ethereal stream, Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the Sun, Before the Heavens, thou wert, and at the voice Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest The rising World of waters dark and deep, Won from the void and formless Infinite! ”

“ Eternal youth, eternal majesty, eternal duration, belong only to the great, the unchangeable I AM. The bustling transitory career of the mighty of the earth, when duly contemplated, should but the more strongly impress on the mind the infinity, eternity, and omnipotence of Deity. ”

“ But now, if eternity is nothing else but time, vitally full, illimitably perfect, and blissfully complete, who, we may ask, first of all caused or produced this earthly, fettered, and fragmentary time, which seems but the great bond-chain of the whole world of sense—and what, then, is this time itself? ”

“ The eternity which baffles and confounds all faculty of computation—the eternity which had been, the eternity which was to be. (3) The diffusive love, not such as rises and falls upon waves of life and mortality, not such as sinks and swells by undulations of time, but a procession, an emanation, from some mystery of endless dawn. ”

“ Can prayer, can praise avert it?—Thou, my all!
My theme! my inspiration! and my crown!
My strength in age! my rise in low estate!
My soul’s ambition, pleasure, wealth!—my world!
My light in darkness! and my life in death! 590
My boast through time! bliss through eternity!
Eternity, too short to speak thy praise!
Or fathom thy profound of love to man! ”