One throw of the dice and
the great game of life is lost!
(John MacDuff, "Thoughts for the Quiet Hour", 1895)
How many there are with whom
the labor of long years is a failure!
They are engaged building some
favorite edifice, material or mental,
literally or figuratively. They dream
not that it rests on shifting sands,
or on the edge of a muffled volcano!
A teacher bestows his fondest
assiduous care on a pupil--
a young life full of high
intellectual promise. A sudden
illness comes and sweeps him away!
A parent lavishes his tenderest
love and affections, thought and
time and money, in raising his child;
but, by-and-by, the life of his prodigal son,
is to the parent, worse than death.
Yes, often are fondest hopes, best
laid plans, glad aspirations, thwarted;
the glowing visions of success
clouded with misfortune--
calamity--
ruin--
One throw of the dice and
the great game of life is lost!
Not so with imperishable riches--
"the hope laid up for you in Heaven"--
bliss beyond the accidents of capricious
fortune, bonds that can know no dissolution.
is the strength of my heart and my portion
forever!" Psalm 73:26
~ ~ ~ ~
GraceGems has published Nathaniel Hawthorne's
"The Celestial Railroad".
This little booklet is a spin-off from Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress". It is an allegory depicting the radical distinction between "the broadness of contemporary Christianity", and "the narrowness of Biblical Christianity". The vast majority of Christian professors have abandoned the Bible's demanding lifestyle of the narrow way, which alone leads to eternal life. A socially fashionable brand of 'easy religion' now masquerades as biblical Christianity.
Hawthorne's dream carries him off to Bunyan's 'City of Destruction' where to his surprise, he is told that a RAILROAD has recently been built from the 'City of Destruction' to the 'Celestial City'. Sadly, this railroad never arrives at its promised destination.
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