June 30
Companions of the Way (Morning)They shall mount up on wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.
AND so must it ever be. First the ideal, and then the rush at it with passionate eyes, and then the daily trudge onward, when its splendour has faded from the view, but is all the more closely wrapped round the heart. For glorious as it is to rise to some great consummation on wings of dream and song, glorious as it is, also, to bend that impetus a little lower, and take some practical crisis of life by storm, an even greater proof of our religion and of the help our God can give us is the life-long tramp of earth's common surface, without fresh wings of dream, or the excitement of rivalry, or the attraction of reward, but with the head cool, and the face forward, and every footfall upon firm ground. Let hope rejoice in a promise which does not go off into the air, but leaves us upon solid earth; and let us hold to a religion which, while it exults in being the secret of enthusiasm and the inspiration of heroism, is daring and Divine enough to find its climax in the common-place.
GEORGE ADAM SMITH
THE IDEAL—REAL