The day must come, when they must put off
all that; when nothing shall remain but themselves; and they
themselves, naked as they were born, shall appear before the
judgment-seat of God.
And did Obadiah, then, carry away nothing with him when he died?
Yes; and yet again, No. His wealth and his power he left behind
him: but one thing he took with him into the grave, better than all
wealth and power; and he keeps it now, and will keep it for ever;
and that is, a good, and just, and merciful action--concerning which
it is written, 'Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord; for they
rest from their labours, and their works do follow them.' Yes,
though a man's wealth will not follow him beyond the grave, his
works will; and so Obadiah's one good deed has followed him. 'He
feared the Lord greatly, and when Jezebel cut off the prophets of
the Lord, Obadiah took a hundred prophets, and hid them by fifty in
a cave, and fed them with bread and water.'
That has followed Obadiah; for by it we know him, now two thousand
years and more after his death, here in a distant land of the name
of which he never heard. By that good deed he lives. He lives in
the pages of the Holy Bible; he lives in our minds and memories; and
more than all, by that good deed he lives for ever in God's sight;
he is rewarded for it, and the happier for it, doubt it not, at this
very moment, and will be the happier for it for ever.
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