3 Sermon Illustrations on Worldliness vs. Other-worldliness

A traveller in Switzerland was walking on the neck of land which leads to the place where the dark-blue Rhone rushes from the waters of Lake Leman to embrace its pale companion, the Arve. He was thinking whether it was possible to be in the world, and yet not of the world. As he wandered on, the two streams flashed before him,—the one, strong, calm, and grand; the other, white, slow, and troubled: and, as they met his sight, they seemed to return an answer to his doubts. Side by side they flowed on, yet, for a while, their waters never mingled. The Rhone was still strong and dark; the Arve, still slow and white. Then he asked himself why it was, though flowing in the same channel, the two rivers remained separate; and he found that it was owing to the impetuous torrent of the Rhone, which was so swift in its course, that it outstripped its weaker companion. Thus he learned, that, if the current of his life were tending onward with a swiftness more than earthly, his life might flow beside the evil of the world without being corrupted by it.

A revival was in progress in the Houston-street Presbyterian Church, New York, in which a young lady was deeply convicted. From its solemn scenes, she turned to the ball-room with its frivolity and fashion. Conscience was outraged, but not slain. Again she was found at the meetings, and urged to decide for God. An invitation to another ball turned her feet from the house of God. She went to the ball, and returned home only to die without hope. Two short weeks saw her among seekers of religion, then in the ball-room, again in the place of prayer, again in the ball-room, and then in her coffin.