Year Book of Daily Devotions — August 24

“Once while some Israelites were burying a man, suddenly they saw a band of raiders; so they threw the man's body into Elisha's tomb. When the body touched Elisha's bones, the man came to life and stood up on his feet!" 2 Kings 13:21”

The bones of Elisha had no more power in themselves to give life—than any other dead man's bones. Yet we may get here the lesson of posthumous influence. No man ever wholly dies. We have nothing to do with superstitious nonsense about relics, saints' bones, and bits of holy men's clothing or of their coffins; but it is true that a really godly man has influence after he dies. He leaves behind him something which cannot die. His name has power. If he writes good books, these live after him, and give life to the souls that their words touch. We ought ever to seek to live—so as not only to be missed and mourned when we die—but to live on after death in our works, our name, our influence.