But the way to this fount is through a straight and narrow gate, and
'few there be who find it.'
Alas! how unsatisfactory are even the choicest blessings of life! Wealth
brings only care, and the millionnaire toils all his life for--his food
and clothes and lodging; dies unregretted, and is soon forgotten. Honor
brings not content, and does but increase the thirst it seeks to
assuage. The poor and the unknown are generally happier than the wealthy
and famous. 'Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher, all is vanity and
vexation of spirit;' and what was true of human nature when 'the
preacher' wrote, is true to-day. Admit that life is but a succession of
pleasures that can never pall, and the world one vast Elysian field, and
that the care of the soul requires the abnegation of every delight, and
spreads a gloomy pall over all the brightness of earth; yet even in that
case, a life wholly devoted to spiritual interests were but a weary,
temporary pilgrimage, which we should gladly endure for a season, in the
hope of the golden crown and never-ending bliss in the world beyond,
could we but look upon the future life in the light of _reality_. Ah!
there is the difficulty, for we are 'of the earth earthy,' and, although
we may fervently _believe_, cannot comprehend, cannot _realize_
eternity. To too many Christians of the present day eternity, heaven,
God, are not a tangible reality, but rather a poetic dream, floating in
the atmosphere of faith, but which their minds cannot grasp.
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