BETWEEN STATIONS by H. H. Haynes

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 21, 1900

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 26, No. 47.

BETWEEN STATIONS.

By H. H. Haynes

"Vanity Fair."

"WHAT did you get?" "We got a gold medal. What did you get?" "We only received a silver medal, but it was the highest award in our class." "And we received two silver medals, a diploma, and a twenty-five-dollar cash prize; but then you know we exhibited a number of things."

The above conversation took place in the pavilion of the State Fair at S., among the representatives of three commercial houses who had exhibited the different articles of their manufacture. The slight eagerness of the voice, the rapidly-uttered words, the dilated eye, and the flushed cheek all combined to show the satisfaction at having received the prizes for which all had worked so hard. Who knows of the hours and days of anxious thought and study spent in getting up the exhibit; and then of the long, weary days which followed during the fair, when they had stood explaining the merits of their different articles to the crowds of visitors each afternoon and evening? What a stimulus the announcement of the awards gave to tired eyes and aching heads, for the last night, which was to be the crowning event! How eagerly each awaited the coming of night, that he might announce to his friends and patrons the honors conferred on the house! They had won—O, wonderful little word of three letters!

How it has made the heart of warrior, politician, business man, student, lover, and even the little child hurrying home from school with a "reward of merit," beat faster at the thought of having done better than his fellows!

A little farther down the aisle stood the competitor of the man who had received the gold medal. How different was the drooping head, the dull eye, the pale cheeks of the man who had lost! He had worked just as hard as the other; he had stood just as many hours talking to the crowds; but only one could win the medal. He had lost. Another little word of four letters. How different the sentiments stirred by that word!

Such is the life we are now living. In all its battles, races, and competitions, only one can win; and even after it is won, others only await an opportunity to snatch the trophy from us.

But we are all entered in another contest, another race, another competition, where it is not only possible but certain that all may win; and the conditions are so easy!

"I am the way, the truth, and the life." John 14:6. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Acts 16:31. "And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." John 17:3. "All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me; and him that cometh to Me I will in nowise cast out." John 6:37. "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him?" Matt. 7:11. "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." Matt. 7:7.

How incomparably greater is the prize offered the Christian to any offered by any worldly competition! The battle has already been won by Another; we simply go over the same battle-field, under the guidance of "Him who has trod the way before us." Victory is sure; the prize is within the reach of all. H. H. HAYNES.