* A. Alexander, in The Expository Times, xii. 563.
PSALM xc. I 215
Under the wide and starry sky, Dig the grave and let me lie. Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will. This be the verse you grave for me ; " Here he lies where he longed to be ; Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill."
Such words imply more than they express ; perhaps they mean more than the speaker knows. In them we hear echoes of a great voice that calls home the thinker to faith, the struggler to achievement, and the dead from dying to a new life. And so there is arrival as well as travel, after all. Indeed the two are combined in regard to faith, and achievement, and that dimly seen but beautiful country beyond the grave. In all these, the true life is at once making for a land that is very far off, and yet at the same time it is ever coming home.^
Now more the bliss of love is felt,
Though felt to be the same ; 'Tis still our lives in one to melt,
Within love's sacred flame :
Each other's joy each to impart,
Each other's grief to share; To look into each other's heart,
And find all solace there :
To lay the head upon one breast,
To press one answering hand, To feel through all the soul's unrest,
One soul to understand:
To go into the teeming world.
The striving and the heat. With knowledge of one tent unfurl'd
To welcome weary feet:
A shadow in a weary land.
Where men as wanderers roam:
A shadow where a rock doth stand — The shadow of a Home.^
* John Kelman, The Faith of Eohert Louis Stevenson, 183.
* George J. Romanes.
2i6 THE HOME OF THE SOUL
2. There are places in which men live, calling them homes, but in which there is no comfort, and not even the appearance of it. Poor, wretched dwellings and abodes of poverty, squalor, and sufi'ering, where there is scarce a glow on the hearth to warm, or a morsel on the table to soothe the pangs of hunger. Or there are dwellings of misery and wretchedness from vice and its effects, scenes of brawling, strife, and auger. Or there are abodes where, though there may be earthly abundance and luxuries, there is a moral coldness, a want of sympathy and affection between those who dwell under the same roof ; and so with all its comforts, it is a home of misery. But it is not such that we associate with the true idea of home, for the right and good and true home is a place of happiness and comfort.
^ How can those who do not know Christ and our Father's home in heaven form any idea of them save from what they see in us and our homes ? That is the way the heathen learn of Christ and heaven. In Hangchow, China, Mrs. Mattpx had been accustomed to invite the little children to her home and make them happy there. Once a Chinese teacher was talking to some of them, and asked, " Where do you want to go when you die — to heaven ? " " No," they answered. " To hell ? " " No." " Where, then, do you want to go ? " " To Mrs. Mattox's house," they re- plied. They could not imagine anything more heavenly than that.^
3. There is no place on earth which is so dear to the heart as home, if the home is such as we usually associate with the name. It is connected with our earliest and happiest resolutions. It is the place round which are twined the most tender and hallowed memories. It is the spot in which are centred our fondest affections, and it contains in it the hopes of all the purity and goodness which are to come hereafter. However humble or lowly, still it is home, a dearer and a sweeter spot than all the world beside. And it is one of the most endearing aspects in which God can be regarded, when He is revealed as the home of His people, as the habitation, " the dwelling and abiding place," of the soul in all time and under every circumstance.
^ Arriving in New York, after their tour in Canada, the party proceeded by the night train to Washington, where they spent a day driving round and seeing all the chief buildings, and then, two
^ R. E. Speer, Men Who vxre Found. Faithful, 141.
PSALM xc. I 217
days afterwards, they went on board the " Lucania." My father writes : " Never shall I forget the joy of this morning and the excitement of seeing, as we drove up, the funnels of the grand ' Lucania ' : I passed through the crowded wharf as on enchanted ground, and stepped on board with a feeling of delight and gratitude reaching almost to ecstasy. Thank God for this trip, for all His mercies, for all the kindness of friends and for the pleasure and instruction of the experience ; but oh, the joy of returning to the old country, and to home ! That swallows up all other gratification in one great rejoicing. When at length I reach the gates of death, may I have the same joy in prospect of the heavenly home ! " ^