THE BRIDGE OF LIFE,

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 18, 1879

THE BRIDGE OF LIFE,

Across the rapid stream of seventy years The slender bridge of human life is thrown; The past and future form its moldering piers; The present moment is its frail keystone.

From “dust thou art” the arch begins to rise, “To dust” the fashion of its form descends, “Shalt thou return,” the higher curve implies, In which the first to the last lowness bends.

Seen by youth’s magic light upon that arch, How lovely does each far-off scene appear! But ah! how changed when on the onward march Our weary footsteps bring the vision near!

’Twas fabled that beneath the rainbow’s foot A treasure lay, the dreamer to bewitch; And many wasted in the vain pursuit The golden years that would have made them rich.

So where life’s arch of many colors leads The heart expects rich wealth of joy to find; But in the distance the bright hope recedes And leaves a cold gray waste of care behind.

A sunlit stream upon its bosom takes Th’ inverted shadow of a bridge on high, And thus the arch in air and water makes One perfect circle to the gazer’s eye.

So ’tis with life: the things that do appear Are fleeting shadows on time’s passing tide, Cast by the sunshine of a higher sphere From viewless things that changelessly abide.

All things of use are bridges that conduct To things of faith, which give them truest worth; And Christ’s own parables do us instruct That Heaven is but the counterpart of earth.

The pier that rests upon this shore’s the same As that which stands upon the further bank; And fitness for our duties here will frame A fitness for the joys of higher rank.

Oh! dark were life without heaven’s sun to show The likeness of the other world in this; And bare and poor would be our lot below Without the shadow of a world of bliss.

Then let us, passing o’er life’s fragile arch, Regard it as a means and not an end; As but the path of faith on which we march To where all glories of our being tend.

—Good Words.