God will lay aside
as useless there that which with so great pains He has sought to perfect
here? It is not so that Christ has taught us to think: "He that received
the five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou
deliverest unto me five talents: lo, I have gained other five talents.
His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant: thou hast
been faithful over a few things, I will set thee over many things: enter
thou into the joy of thy lord." God will not take the tools out of the
workman's hands just when he has learned how to handle them; He will not
"pension off" His servants just when they are best able to serve Him.
The reward of work well done is more work; faithfulness in few things
brings lordship over many. Have we not here a ray of light on the
mystery of unfinished lives? We do not murmur when the old and tired are
gathered to their rest; but when little children die, when youth falls
in life's morning, when the strong man is cut off in his strength, we
know not what to say. But do not "His servants serve Him" there as well
as here? Their work is not done; in ways beyond our thoughts it is going
forward still. [60]

One other question concerning the future with which, as by an instinct,
we turn to Christ for answer is suggested by the following touching
little poem:

"I can recall so well how she would look--
How at the very murmur of her dress
On entering the room, the whole room took
An air of gentleness.

That was so long ago, and yet his eyes
Had always afterwards the look that waits
And yearns, and waits again, nor can disguise
Something it contemplates.

May we imagine it? The sob, the tears,
The long, sweet, shuddering breath; then on her breast
The great, full, flooding sense of endless years,
Of heaven, and her, and rest."

Can we quote the authority of Jesus for thoughts like these? The point
is, let it be noted, not whether we shall know each other again beyond
death, but whether we shall be to each other what we were here. At the
foot of the white marble cross which his wife placed upon the grave of
Charles Kingsley are graven these three words: _Amavimus, Amamus,
Amabimus_ ("We have loved, we love, we shall love"). After Mrs.
Browning's death her husband wrote these lines from Dante in her
Testament: "Thus I believe, thus I affirm, thus I am certain it is, that
from this life I shal