Bible Truths Illustrated by J. C. Ferdinand Pittman

—
;
BIBLE TRUTHS ILLUSTRATED
428. We had traversed the great Aletsch Glacier, and were
very hungry when we reached the mountain turn half-way between
the Bel Alp and the hotel at the foot of the Aeggischorn
there a peasant undertook to descend the mountain, and bring
us bread and milk. It was a very Marah to us when he brought
us back milk too sour for us to drink, and bread black as a coal,
too hard to bite, and sour as the curds. What then? Why, we
longed the more eagerly to reach the hotel towards which we
were travelling. We mounted our horses and made no more
halts till we reached the hospitable table where our hunger was
abundantly satisfied. Thus our disappointments on the road to
heaven whet our appetites for the better country, and quicken
the pace of our pilgrimage to the celestial city. C. H. Spurgeon.
429. Death came unexpectedly to a man of wealth, as it almost
always does ; and he sent out for his lawyer to draw his will. He
went on willing away his property; and when he came to his
wife and child, he said he wanted his wife and child to have
the home. The little child didn't understand what death was.
She was standing near, and she said : "Papa, have you got a
home in that land you are going to?" The arrow reached that
heart ; but it was too late. He saw his mistake. He had got no
home beyond the grave.
430. The novelist wrote as follows: "The old post-chaise gets
more shattered at every turn of the wheel. Windows will not
pull up ; doors refuse to open and shut. Sicknesses come
thicker and faster; friends become fewer and fewer. Death has
closed the long, dark avenue upon earthly loves and friendships.
I look at them as through the grated door of a burial-place
filled with monuments of those once dear to me. I shall never
see the threescore and ten, and shall be summed up at a discount."
Ah ! that is not a cheerful sunset of a splendid literary
career. At evening-time it looks gloomy and the air smells of
the sepulchre. Listen now to the old Christian philanthropist,
whose inner life was hid with Christ in God. He writes : "I can
scarce understand why my life is spared so long, except it be
to show that a man can be just as happy without a fortune as
with one. Sailors on a voyage drink to 'friends astern* till
they are half-way across, and after that it is 'friends ahead.'
151