Journey To Heaven

        Our highest aspiration must wait. We are here to get through the world. Life is a road where we camp for a night on a journey to the golden gate and the setting sun; a traveler who sets up his tent at dark  does not plant corn or put out a grape-vine, if when the morning comes he expects to pull his tent down and march on. Men are born upon the shore of one ocean; by traveling lightly and never losing a moment, and marching bravely on, through forest, over desert, mountain and river, the traveler can  reach the other ocean in time to catch the little boat that slips out into the dark, and sails out of sight with God alone. But the traveler must not expect to plant harvests and grow vineyards while out upon his march. Yonder lie the happy hills of God. There no winter falls, there the summer sheds its warmth always upon the violet beds. There youth is perfect and beauty is eternal. There every ambition will be perfected, every dream realized; every hope turned to fruition, and the soul is a tree  waving its fruit and casting down its purple vintage at the feet of the God of the summer. - N. D. Hillis.

"Closer to Heaven" from Faithborne Journey

An Empty Nest: A Sonnet

An Empty Nest: A Sonnet

by Edwin Clarence Sprague

Deep in the forest dell I found a nest,

Empty and silent, swaying to and fro,

Rocked by the breezes that did gently blow,

Nor for a moment seemed to be at rest.

Wrecked was its structure by the brambles pressed;

Once 'twas the home wherein wee nestlings lie

Blinking with wonder at the summer sky,

Longing to soar upon its airy crest.

So may my soul be strengthened day by day,

And graced by patient waiting year by year,

That I might long to rise and soar away

When that last hour to me is drawing near

To that great realm, where in peace and rest, 

I'll leave-behind the old deserted nest.

 

Nest die cut.

The Voices of The Dead...

        The world is filled with the voices of the dead. They speak not from the public records of the great world only, but from the private history of our own experience. They speak to us in a thousand remembrances, in a thousand incidents, events, associations. They speak to us, not only from their silent graves, but from the throng of life. Though they are invisible, yet life is filled with their presence. They are with us, by the silent fireside and in the secluded chamber: they are with us in the paths of society, and in the crowded assembly of men. They speak to us from the lonely way-side, and they speak to us, from the venerable walls that echo to the steps of a multitude, and to the voice of prayer. Go where we will, the dead are with us. We live, we converse, with those, who once lived and conversed, with us. Their well remembered tone mingles with the whispering breezes, with the sound of the falling leaf, with the jubilee shout of the spring-time. The earth is filled with their shadowy train.

       But there are more substantial expressions of the presence of the dead with the living. The earth is filled with labors, the works, of the dead. Almost all the literature in the world, the discoveries of science, the glories of art, the ever-during temples, the dwelling-places of generations, the comforts and improvements of life, the languages, the maxims, the opinions, of the living, the very frame-work of society, the institutions of nations, the fabrics of empires‚ -all are the works of the dead; by these, they who are dead yet speak. Life-busy, eager, craving, importunate, absorbing life-yet what is its sphere,  compared with the empire of death! What, in other words, is the sphere of visible, compared with the mighty empire of invisible life! They live-they live indeed, whom we call dead. They live in our thoughts; they live in our blessings; they live in our life; -death hath no power over them." Rev. Orville Dewey, D. D.

"O LORD, You have brought up my soul from Sheol; You have kept my alive,
that I would not go down to the pit." Psalm 30:3

Death Overcome

        Where faith in Jesus raises a dying man above the sufferings of nature, and a sinful man above the terrors of guilt, illuminating the closing scene with the hopes and very light of approaching glory, this close of life is the grandest of sunsets. Nowhere, does religion look so magnificent as amid such scenes. And never does she seem so triumphant as when, with her fingers closing the filmy eyes, she contemplates the peaceful corpse; and bending down to take one fond kiss of pallid lips, or marble brow, rises, and raises her hands to heaven, exclaims, Blessed are the dead! The battle done; the victory won; rest, warrior! workman! pilgrim!-rest! "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord; for they rest from their labors, and their works do follow them." Rev. Dr. Guthrie.

Posted by City Church San Francisco.

The Spirit Survives in It's Completeness

        Brethren, observe, that man's spirit cannot be resolved like his body into form and material, the former perishing while the latter survives. Man's spirit either exists in its completeness, or it ceases to exist. The bodily form of William the Conqueror has long dissolved into dust. The material atoms which made up the body of William the Conqueror during his lifetime exist somewhere now beneath the pavement of the great church at Caen; but if the memory and the conscience and the will of the Conqueror have perished, then his spirit has ceased to be. There is no substratum below or beyond these which could perpetuate existence; there is nothing spiritual to survive them, for the soul of man‚ your soul and mine‚ knows itself to be an indivisible whole - something which cannot be broken into parts, and enter into unison with other souls - with other minds. Each of us is himself. Each can become no other. My memory, my affections, my way of thinking and feeling are all my own; they are not transferable. If they perish they perish all together. There are no atoms to survive them which can be worked into another spiritual existence; and thus the extinction of an animal or a vegetable is only the extinction of that particular combination of matter - not of the matter itself; but the extinction of a soul, if the thing were possible, would be the total extinction of all that made it to be what it ever was. In the physical world, destruction and death are only changes. In the spiritual world, the only possible analogous process would mean annihilation. And, therefore, it is a reasonable and a very strong presumption that spirit is not, in fact, placed at this enormous disadvantage when compared with matter, and that, if matter survives the dissolution of organic forms, much more must spirit survive the dissolution of the material forms with which it has been for a while associated.

Passing of life . . . 

And this is life - to-day we here abide,
Perchance to-morrow we must step aside,
We master not our own; no vain regret
Can change the path for us which God has
set.
Then let our footsteps be toward the light,
With loving words and deeds make each day
bright.
Let charity progress to wider plan.
Lend gracious ear to creed of every man. 

S. D. Gardner.