More Lasting than Bronze
by Rev. Robert J. Hermley

Stories for Life Index
Home Page

I believe it was the poet, Horace, who once wrote, " I have built a monument more lasting than bronze." Others had built testimonials to their victories and to their successes, but time, the wind and rain combined to erase the inscriptions on the memorials they built.  After a while no one really knew why they were constructed or exactly what they commemorated.  On the other hand, the poet knew that his words would continue as long as there was a mind to remember and eyes to read his lines.

Mothers and fathers fulfilling their roles as parents in the plan of God through lawful marriage bring souls into the world to perpetuate the human race and to leave behind a living memorial to the fact that they lived and worked for God.  These souls of their children are far more precious than monuments and certainly even more important than poetry.  Monuments can be destroyed and poetry disregarded, but these immortal souls brought into the world through God's plan and the parental cooperation with God's design, will live in eternity in heaven or in hell.  There is no other choice.

What a marvelous work it is, then, for parents to teach and train the soul of a child or of many children to know, love, and serve God, and to be of great; use to his fellow men in this life and finally to save his or her soul through a good and holy life of living the faith that the parents passed on so well in the spiritual training.

How fortunate for such parents when being judged by Christ who will ask them one day, "What have you done for Me in life?"  And with great pride they can point to their children on earth and to their children's children who are living the faith they taught them so well.  they will turn, then, to Christ with a smile and say, "There-there is my monument, more lasting than bronze."