NEARING HOME by Wm. Penniman

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 19, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 32.

NEARING HOME.

By Wm. Penniman

“Home” is one of the sweetest of words. The poet John Howard Payne, who wrote the poem “Home, Sweet Home,” immortalized his name. The old words will ever be true that “home is home if it be ever so homely,” and “there is no place like home.”

A home is one’s dwelling-house, or, in short, a place where one has a right to dwell. We may also have a right to our eternal home (Rev. 22:14): “Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life.” If we have a right to the tree of life, we have also a right “to enter in through the gates into the city,” where Christ has prepared for us (John 14:2) an eternal home.

When in Vermont, in 1894, I had the pleasure of listening to one of the most interesting testimonies in a meeting I ever heard. It was from a brother who had been a soldier in the Civil War. I can not tell it as he did, but will try to give the substance. He was very zealous, and his whole heart was in his testimony, and the chief subject was “nearing home.” He alluded to the time when his company (the Green Mountain boys) received their honorable discharge from service at the close of the war; to the time when they boarded the train that would carry them out of “Dixie’s Land,” to their homes in Vermont. He spoke of how they waved their hats and shouted, and how glad and thankful they were that they were on their way home. The train carried them on rapidly, and one landmark and city after another was passed, and soon they came in sight of the old Green Mountains. Then their hearts beat with more joyful emotions, and their happiness could not be compared with what it was when they started on their journey; and as they came nearer and nearer, and finally came in sight of the mountain peaks, hills, valleys, and their old homes, which they had not seen for years, O, how they then cheered and waved their hats as never before! Finally, when they stepped on the old hearthstones, and clasped in their arms wives, mothers, fathers, children, brothers, and sisters, their happiness, so far as sociability in this life is concerned, was complete, and they could then weep for joy.

But this happiness is not to be compared with what will be experienced if we are faithful and worthy of that beautiful home “beyond the river,” in those beautiful mansions in the heavenly city, whose streets are paved with gold. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” 1 Cor. 2:9.

If so much happiness can be had here, what will it be to be there? Are we not nearing our home beyond this sin-cursed earth? As the soldiers passed one landmark after another, which was an outward sign that they were nearing home, so have we not passed nearly all the waymarks? Are we not now between the falling of the stars and the shaking of the powers of heaven, or gathering together of the heavens as a scroll? Matt. 24:2-9; Rev. 6:14. Is it not time for the saints to rejoice as never before, for their “redemption draweth nigh”? Death and the coming of Christ are near at the longest, and time is bearing us on with more than railroad speed to our distant destination. Therefore let us be faithful soldiers in the Lord’s army, and be worthy of an honorable discharge, and so be permitted to see our loved ones who are worthy of the kingdom, and be permitted to sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Matt. 8:11), and, greatest of all, to see God and the blessed Saviour, the Captain of our salvation, and enjoy his approving smile in that everlasting home forever.

Let us strive every day for that home, and thank God that we are nearing it.

Wm. Penniman.

Woodburn, Ill.