Here and There by L. D. Santee

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 11, 1866

Here and There.

By L. D. Santee

HERE we see much of sorrow. Darkness often obscures the worn earth's surface. Clouds hide the sun. The heavens are often overcast and seem to weep over the curse which has rested like a dark pall upon the earth, so darkly and so long. The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain. All nature languisheth. The trail of the serpent is everywhere visible. Decay and desolation, corruption and mortality, are indelibly stamped upon the earth's bosom. Oh, what a change since the morning-stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. Here we are brought forth in sin. Our days are few and full of trouble. Our frames are racked with anguish, and scorched with burning fevers. Though we are happy to-day, the morrow may bring bitter weeping. Here our friends are torn from us by the ruthless power of the destroyer. Vain is our sorrow. Vain are our tears. The loved and lost are wafted away from our embrace into the land of the enemy. Here friendship's chain is often broken. Cherished friends turn coldly from us. Here we confess that we are strangers and pilgrims on the earth; that this earth is not our abiding place. But in view of the future, we can be glad through toil and pain. Beyond the storm and gloom of our fallen existence, is the radiance of God's everlasting kingdom. Here is labor; yonder rest. Here is the cross; there the crown. Here the desert lies stretched out a picture of desolation; there the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water. May the Lord preserve us blameless until he comes, and at last may we dwell forever in the saint's eternal home.

L. D. SANTEE.

Gridley, Ill.