LS-25-Sacred to the Memory of

Sacred to the Memory of
an Undying Love In remembrance of Me.--1 Corinthians 11:25.

Most beautiful of all the tombs of the world is the Taj Mahal in Agra, India. The story of its building runs back three hundred years. Mumtaz Mahall, the wife of the emperor, died. Her husband was overpowered with grief. And as an expression of his undying love resolved to spend the wealth of his dominions in building an appropriate resting place for her body. It was built in a garden, planted with flowers and flowering shrubs, the emblems of life, and with the solemn cypress, the emblem of death and eternity. Materials and architects and builders were gathered from many parts, that the best of everything might be used, and the tomb, world-famed for its delicate beauty, was erected in the course of twenty years. In the central chamber, the queen, for whom it was intended, and her lord and lover now lie. "No words can express its chastened beauty seen in the soft gloom of the subdued light coming from the distant and half-closed openings." Strange acoustic properties are there too. "Sounds are caught up by the echoes of the roof and repeated in endless harmonies, which seem to those listening above as if a celestial choir were chanting angelic hymns. It haunts the air above and around, it distils in showers upon the polished marble, it rises, it falls." A traveller tells of standing in the recesses alone, and repeating the words, "Sacred to the memory of an undying love." "A wonderful echo caught up the words, and bore them towards the dome, where, like a baffled bird, it fell to the pavement, again to rise, only to flutter down again, but ever repeating the words, Sacred to the memory of an undying love." The memorial of love we have before us today cannot compare with the Taj Mahal in magnificence or expended wealth. Well indeed that it is so, else for most of us, like the Taj, it would he a monument that we might hear about but few would ever see. It is a memorial of simple elements, which may be brought before the eyes of all men everywhere. But as we receive them, must we not say in our hearts: these emblems are sacred to the memory of an undying love? And is not this a message that we would love to send out to encircle the world, and echo through the corridors of eternity? It is the memorial of One who holds the undying love of our hearts, for He loved us, and gave Himself up for us.