Cheer for Life's Pilgrimage

The Jews have never forgotten that they are the descendants of a pilgrim race. From the day that their great forefather crossed the Euphrates, and became the Hebrew, to the present, they have been the nation of the wandering foot, found in every land, but at home in none.

Their literature is dyed with this conception. It abounds with the confession that they are strangers and sojourners upon earth. Abraham made it when he stood up from before his dead, and purchased the cave of Machpelah from the sons of Heth. Jacob made it when he stood in the presence of Pharaoh and of the solid memorials of Egyptian greatness. Hezekiah made it when he compared his life to a shepherd’s tent. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews made it when he alleged that the continuing city was yet to come. It is made here:” Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage.,,

But these plaintive confessions are not confined to Jews; they are the heritage of all nations. Few things in our language are more touching than the comparison made by the Northumbrian chieftain, on the eve of the introduction of Christianity, between man’s life and the flight of a sparrow through a lighted hall, coming out of the darkness and storm, and after a brief flight going forth into it again. Under this head, what more suggestive than Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales,” told in an inn!

Earth is but a camping-ground, on which we halt for a little on our journey forward into the great eternity which awaits us. Other generations have been here before us, and have gone, we know not whither; but they are marching onward and forward somewhere, and we must follow them, as others us. Indeed, our world has been compared to the site of a Gipsy encampment, where the gray ash, broken pottery, and fluttering rags tell of previous caravans that made it their halting-place for a few nights, and then yoked in the lank steeds and went on to other camping-grounds. The merry-go-rounds will stop, the oillamps cease to flare, the fair will be done, and we shall be away with the daybreak.

These things need to be repeated; we are so apt to forget. The mere fact of returning night after night to our homes and beds makes us think that they are permanent abiding-places, when, in point of fact, we never come back to them where we left them. During our absence at the mill or the school they have been moved farther along the road we are traveling, as Arabs move forward the tents of European tourists in Palestine, so that they are awaiting them for the evening meal. Our homes are tents, always moving forward, because we are ever on the march toward our eternal abode.

We are exiles beside the river of time, as Israel was in Babylon, and we mingle our tears with its waters as we reflect on the brevity and transience of our days.

The house of our pilgrimage. What can this be but our mortal body? “The Word was made flesh, and tabernacled among us “;“1 must put off this my tabernacle “; “When the earthly house of this tabernacle is broken up, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” It has been truly said that we are not flesh and blood, but are made partakers of flesh and blood. Each one of us is an immortal spirit, created in the likeness of God, and for a little while brought under the conditions of mortality as an education for our eternal condition. During our brief sojourn here we reside in the body as our tent. It is the house of our pilgrimage.

The tent is frail. “The veil, that is to say, His flesh,” Only a veil hangs between us and the great constellations of eternity, between us and the world of realities, between us and the face of God. A breath may wave it, an insect’s sting may pierce it, a thorn may rend it.

The tent is not always perfect to begin with. Some of us start on our pilgrimage with a crazy house, which is always in need of attention and repair. Life is much more difficult under such conditions. Paul’s thorn in the flesh made it less likely that he could achieve as much as other men; it was by God’s grace that he actually achieved more. All honor to the men who have triumphed over the limitations and deficiencies of their physical environment, and have become more than conquerors through Him who loved them. We are all proud of a former Postmaster- General, who, notwithstanding his blindness, was able to reach and hold with credit one of the highest positions in the land.

The tent has a limited durability. It is not intended to last for more than eighty or ninety years at the utmost. Its average duration is much less than this. With all our efforts for its repair, it inevitably wears out at last. But how important to distinguish between tent and tenant! The one material and temporary; the other spiritual and immortal. When you come upon a wrecked signal-box, a ruined house, you know that the inmate has moved on. He is living somewhere. This is only the place where he lived and wrought — the laboratory of the chemist, the forge of the eager worker, the observatory of the heaven-soaring thinker. So, when the body is all that is left you of the dear one in whose company you were accustomed to make pilgrimage, treat it reverently and lovingly, but remember it is the worn-out tent of the spirit, which is clothed upon with its new house, which is from heaven.

My songs.” Songs in the house of my pilgrimage.”

This is startling.

The pilgrim’s lot is so changeful. No sooner has he become settled than he must be gone. The enchanting prospect, the sweet beauty of nature in her loveliest dress, the tender love of friends, the delicious sense of repose — all must be abandoned when the bugle sounds the reveille. So fair is the site that one would fain linger, but there is no alternative than to strike the tent and follow. See, the pillar of cloud is already on its way, moving in stately march over the desert sand! Is it possible to sing, when such partings and settings forth and farewells are ever our lot? The weak heart clings to the past, dreads the unknown — can it sing?

The pilgrim’s life is so perilous. Take the experiences of an explorer. The fruits he plucks on the unknown soil may poison him; the flowers may narcotize him with their scent; miasma may lurk amid the most bewitching scenery; the waters of certain streams may be unfit to drink. He does not know the native customs, and at any time may involve himself, most innocently, in their undying hatred. Every day leads him through strange and difficult circumstances; every night is spent at a new resting-place. Amid so much that is trying and perplexing, is it possible for the heart to sing? Yet this is what the psalmist says:” Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage.,,

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