THE REAL AND THE EVANESCENT.
By S.
EVERY year, since the year 1848, increasing thousands have passed through, or begun their journey toward, the Golden Gate of California. They know as they always have known, that there are dangers to be met; but they have pushed on and met them, and either overcame them or were overcome by them. All were filled with hopes and aspirations. Some realized their brightest dreams; others failed even to catch a glimpse of the Golden Gate or the glittering sands from which they hoped to glean a rich harvest. Some made fortunes, and thousands were ruined. Some went back with wealth, others never went back, but lost their all, bartered their souls and lost again. Still others, with the frost of many winters in their hair, are searching, delving, testing, turning hither and thither, hoping ever that the next pan will give up the golden key to the fortune whose quest they can not forsake. From stream to stream, from plain to craggy cliff, this insatiate army trudges, with hope for its knapsack and golden dreams for its pillow. One by one their comrades are sounding taps over the tired dreamers, and they are laid away. They looked toward the Golden Gate as toward the portal of a temporal paradise. The promise which hope had made them has never been fulfilled. They staked all, and they lost. How different is the hope which the Gospel is holding out to man. It has its golden gate; it has its glorious reward beyond that gate; and there is no disappointment to the seeker. There are hardships to be borne; but they have been borne by Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and He has promised His unfailing guidance to every one who will undertake that journey. There are stormy seas to cross; but Jesus Christ is the Pilot from the port of sailing to the anchorage within the harbor bar; and no vessel which He pilots will ever founder or be thrown upon the rocks and be lost. There is absolute certainty in this. True, some have set out upon this voyage and have not gone through. But they forsook chart and compass, dismissed the Pilot, and thus put the wheel in the hands of him whose great purpose was the ruin of their souls. Beyond the gate toward which the Christian journeys there lies the absolute fulfilment of the most glorious hopes the heart of man has ever harbored. Here men have striven, struggled, journeyed under desperate privations, passed through dangers hidden and revealed, dangers which threatened life itself,—all for a few ounces of gold and the joy they expected to find in its possession during a few short years. But what of that better hope which God has set before the race? He tells us, "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. Have you seen your brightest hopes fade and wither, and become the plaything of the winds of misfortune? The brightest hopes the child of earth can picture for himself are pale and insignificant beside the hopes which God holds out to the humblest suppliant of His grace—and His are real. It may have been best for you that the hopes you built have crumbled. It was best if these were blinding your eyes to the unsearchable riches of God. The golden portal of riches or pleasure toward which your longing eyes had looked, and through which you had hoped to pass, may have been a portal whose passage would have been your eternal ruin. We can not afford to wreck our hope of entering upon the enjoyment of the riches and glories of heaven and of the earth made new for the sake of the fleeting pleasures of a transient life. The golden gate toward which the Christian looks is the pearl-hinged gate of the City of God. Beyond that is life everlasting; beyond that is the fruition of hope long deferred; beyond that is the companionship of the Christ who bought us with His blood; "God Himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things have passed away." Rev. 21:3, 4.4When that blessed realization comes, how little we will think of the bitterest trials we have had to pass through here. They will not then be deemed worthy of coming into mind. These things that try us and test us now; these things for which so many labor from dawn to dusk; they are the transient, the evanescent; they are passing away. But these other toward which the Christian looks, and in which he hopes through the mercies of God, these are the real, the substantial, the enduring. In their possession we have all. Without them we have nothing, and life itself will fade away with the transient things to which it clings. Truly our hope is a glorious hope, for it binds us to Him who is the center and source of all the good the universe contains.