Sermon Illustrations

Around the corner I have a friend,

In this great city that has no end;

Yet days go by and weeks rush on,

And before I know it, a year is gone,

And I never see my old friend’s face.

For life is a swift and terrible race.

He knows I like him just as well

As in the days when I rang his bell

And he rang mine. We were younger then,

And now we are busy, tired men:

Tired of playing a foolish game,

Tired of trying to make a name.

“Tomorrow,” I say, “I will call on Jim

Just to show that I am thinking of him.”

But tomorrow comes-and tomorrow goes,

And the distance between us grows and grows.

Around the corner!-yet miles away . . .

“Here’s a telegram, Sir,” . . . “Jim died today.”

And that’s what we get and deserve in the end:

Around the corner, a vanished friend.

-Charles Hanson Towne

[Robert J. Morgan, Nelson’s Complete book of Stories, Illustrations and Quotes (Thomas Nelson: Nashville, 2000), 324.]

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