AFTER a weary voyage through storms and shade how welcome are the green hills of our native land. After a lonely pilgrimage among the uncivilized nations of a dreary waste, how sweet is the first sight of home. After wearisome nights of pain, and lingering days of hopeless disease, how soul-inspiring is the soft breath of spring, and returning health; yet comparison fails to express the reality. We are sojourning where the weak are a prey to the strong, and are hourly exposed to the malice of a powerful adversary, whose artifice and zeal are untiring. Our path is beset with trial, disappointment and pain. When we seek to cool our feverish lips with some pleasant fruit, we find it false and bitter at the core. When we turn our aching eyes to the beauty of some opening flower, we find the canker there, and weep to see its young leaves so soon scattered among the thorns. Every thing that is lovely is passing away, and the sin and the curse abides still.
We love the beautiful and sigh
For that which never fades,
The loveliness that cannot die,
The light without the shades.
How glorious thus is the hope of Paradise regained, and the glad tidings that the day is near when the earth shall be restored to its Eden state, and the glory of the Lord cover it as the waters cover the sea. Metaphor is tame, and language weak, to express the sweetness of the Second ADVENT HOPE, or the reality of our precious faith. Having this hope we seek to purify ourselves even as He is pure. We love the appearing of the Lord of Glory, and long to see the Prince of princes restored to his kingdom. "We KNOW and BELIEVE the love that God hath to us," and therefore rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, and feel the bright assurance that He "will come again," and receive us to himself, for where He is, there shall also his servants be.
C. S. M.