The Lambertville press. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1858-1???, 1860-02-01
gabbath geaaing.
A Short Road.
Come, cheer up, daughter,
It's a short road nome now.

W ACai0 Jig NOluo oHU 90" eHO
speaker, as we stood at the gate of
the old farmhouse, to whose serene
Stiffness and shadowy seclusion we had
gone for healing of mind and body.
1t was just falling into the quiet of
an autumn evening, and the day had
been one Of the years farewell smiles.
Through the opal cir we saw the blue
hills, and the far off cathedrals of our
worship, and betwixt them and Us, lay
meadow and pasture lot, and corn field;
with brown insertings of streams, and
green embroideries of woodland.
We knew she was his daughter
the little girl who sat in the farm wag-
on, on the right hand of her father
and he was bluff, broad chested, sun
Drowned man but his loud tones had
something that was like mothers in
them, as he put his strong arm around
the small tired dropping figure, which
sat, in its straw bonnet and pink rib
bon, calico dress, on his right hand.
And as the numbering old vehicle
rolled away into the dust of the road,
we thought of that other Road going
up from the table lands of time to the
Mountains of Eternity, and this also
was short one.
Short, even though it stretches up
to the pain, and WEAKNESS and burden
of seventy years-short, though it lies
amid the storms and the SHOWS with
which the kindliest year that ever walk
ed over the earth, has yet covered the
face of so many of its nights and days.
There are times we believe, when
this thought-the road to Heaven is a
short one-must fill the bravest and
most cheerful hearts with solemn sad
ness; for life to the best and happiest
cannot always be here 1t has its
days of clouds and nights of darkness,
and how painful and pitifnl, how hollow
and hopeless seem at these seasons the
possession of life which, is all of this
world
A SHORT ROAD! And yet just
think how we travel it, with burdened
hands and bleeding feet Cares pinch
our souls here, and warp them there;
and we say our hopes are gone, and
our hearts are broken, when above US
the angels may be smiling as they watch
day by day the growth and beauty of
that home, under the shadows of whose
portals there is rest and quiet forever
Dear reader so the foundations OF
your house are laid there, you have
nothing to fear-be of good courage,
and take heart, for the road is short
one.' Now we never yet saw man
who could not talk better than the
best could live, and with our narrow
horizons of vision, with our heaviness
and heart aches with lack of sympathy,
and sorrows which eat out day by day
the blossoms and fruits of life, it is not
half so strange as sad, that we meet
so many who have settled down into
kind of sullen endurance of life.
But after all, it is wrong to give mp
thus: wrong, because life is worth so
much, even it be a worldly point of
view, bankrupt and wrecked. You
have or may have, the title deeds to
fair lands, sloping down to the River
of Life, to home rising serene and
stately on its immortal banks, and
what is more than all the rest, to good
ness and truth and love forever and
forever!
Oh, they are blessed words; words,
whose silver utteranee flows sweetly
down the borders of the centuries, the
comfort and anchor and rest and re-
joicing of human hearts-words which
never close their great mysterious full
ness and beauty aud richness of mean
ing.
And God shall wipe all tears from
their eyes; and there shall be no more
death, neither sorrow, nor crying, nei-
Their shall be any more pain; for the
former things are passed away.
Dear friend, to whom we call softly
with this pen of ours, you mist die in
a little while. 1t is likely the tree is
hewn which shall make your coffin.
It's green branches may have waved
for the last time, rejoicingly, in the
summer winds; and the birds have
built their last morning and evening
gospels in its boughs. The loom, too,
may have been built which shall weave
your shroud and perhaps your feet
entering through the gates of another
year shall never walk to its close.
But if the green grass be over your
head and your feet on the golden streets
it shall be well with youl So be of
good cheer-one BY enc you are pass
ing the land marks--day by day you
are drawing nearer the end Of your
iournev-THE RoAD TO HEAVEN IS A
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