The End of the Way by Clara Edna Rosecrans

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Oct 28, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 42.

“The End of the Way”

By Clara Edna Rosecrans

By Clara Edna Rosecrans

“The toils of the road will seem nothing when we get to the end of the way.”

THE hot, sultry day is almost at an end. All day we have pursued our way,—sometimes over rough, hilly roads; sometimes down green slopes, bordered on either hand by rolling tracts of pasturelands; now beside a still, quiet lake, where the willows bend to kiss the clear waters, and the sun smiles back at his own image; again through the bustle of a city’s streets, where the clang and whir of a millionfold activity made us long for the peace and rest of the country again.

All day the sun has beaten down with fervid heat, and we are glad when the lengthening shadows tell that evening draws on. Our feet are very weary, but we see on either hand things that look familiar. We are drawing near the place where our childhood days were passed. The sun drops down. A cool breeze springs up and fans our cheeks. We trill a happy song; and our feet, so tired and sore an hour ago, seem to have received new life. We are almost home. One by one familiar landmarks come into view. Already in anticipation we see the dear old place. The sun sinks below the farthest range of the blue hills, tinging the clouds to the westward with indescribable hues of crimson, rose, and gold. Our feet are directed steadily toward the sunset, and its last rays shoot athwart our path, giving it an almost unearthly glory. In the hedges by the roadside the crickets wake up and begin to chirp, and here and there a katydid sends forth its sharp, shrill cry. The stars peep out one by one, while over in the valley to the right the lamps of the village gleam forth like beacons. As we note this, our footsteps quicken; for is it not just beyond those lights that the old home nestles?

“Home!” Our hearts throb tumultuously as the dear faces of loved ones come up before us. And we shall see them so soon—“when we get to the end of the way”!

Dear reader, is this not a good illustration of the journey that we are all making? At one stage or another we are all passing over the same road. To some it is early morning-time. The birds sing, the flowers bloom, the sun has not yet dried the dewdrops from the grass at our feet. Life goes on like a gay panorama of entrancing beauty. There seems but little sorrow in the world, because Jesus has forgiven our sins. We are so happy in His service, that we hope for nothing—want nothing but to feel His love in our hearts.

The sun rises higher, the dewdrops one by one disappear, the jubilant chorus of bird-songs that greeted the morning has died away into silence. Then it is that we begin to turn our thought away from the wondrous beauty of the outward scene, and to think about our journey—where we are going, what commissions our King has given us to discharge on the way; and our feet hasten, for the sun is now at its meridian.

This is the work-time of our lives. The world with its sin and sorrow is all about us. We find by the wayside fallen ones who must be lifted and cared for, heavy-laden ones whose burdens must be carried; and by and by we find ourselves so burdened down with cares, that we almost forget whither we are going—almost forget the One who sent us forth with such joy in the bright morning-time. But as the life-sun nears its setting, our hearts begin to yearn for “home.” We are thankful for the quiet and rest that come with growing age, and Jesus grows even more precious than He was when first we started in the way. And now comes the blessedness of the thought that home and heaven are near. In the beginning of our Christian experience, we did not think much of these things. Heaven was to us a far-away, beautiful place that we hoped to reach some day. Now the scenes of earth grow far away, and heaven intensely real—the one reality that will survive the disillusionment which comes with the growing years. Ah, we must keep close to the path now, for dangers and difficulties beset us of which we little dreamed when we first started!

But “the end of the way” is near. The lights gleam out from the city of the “many mansions.” Rest, home, eternal blessedness—all will find their glad fruition there.