Building for Eternity

What if a man should see his neighbour getting workmen and building materials together, and should say to him, "What are you building?" and he should answer, "I don't exactly know—I am waiting to see what will come of it;" and so walls rush up, and room is added to room, while the man looks idly on, and all the bystanders exclaim, "What a fool he is!"

Yet this is the way many men are building their characters for eternity; adding room to room, without plan or aim, and thoughtlessly waiting to see what the effect will be. Such builders will never dwell in "the house of God, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." Many men build as cathedrals were built — the part nearest the ground finished, but that part which soars towards heaven, the turrets and the spires, for ever incomplete. A kitchen, a cellar, a bar, and a bedroom: these are the whole of some men, the only apartments in their soul-house. Many men are mere warehouses full of merchandise: the head, the heart, are stuffed with goods. Like those houses in the lower streets of the city which were once family dwellings, but are now used for commercial purposes, there are apartments in their souls which were once tenanted by taste, and love, and joy, and worship; but they are all deserted now, and the rooms are filled with earthly and material things.—Beecher