December 27
Companions of the Way (Morning)Sorrows are passed, and in the end is shewed the treasure of immortality.
THIS is the effect which every great sorrow and struggle has upon a noble soul. Come to the streets of the living; who are these whom we can so easily distinguish from the crowd by their firmness of step and look of peace, . . . holding, without rest or haste, the tenor of their way, as if they marched to music heard by their ears alone? These are they which have come out of great tribulation. They have brought back into time the sense of eternity. They know how near the invisible worlds lie to this one, and the sense of the vast silences stills all idle laughter in their hearts. The life that is to other men chance or sport, strife or hurried flight, has for them its allotted distance; is for them a measured march, a constant worship. "For the bitterness of their soul they go in procession all their years."
GEORGE ADAM SMITH
Sorrow's subjects, they are our kings; wrestlers with death, our veterans; and to the rabble armies of society they set the step of a nobler life.
QUIET PILGRIMS
What shall I say? He hath both spoken unto me, and Himself hath done it: I shall go softly all my years in the bitterness of my soul.