Be Agreeable
Make yourselves as agreeable and helpful to each other as possible, remembering that soon you part. The few years of boyhood and girlhood will soon slip by, and you will go out to homes of your own, and into the battle with the world and amid ever-changing vicissitudes, and on paths crossed with graves, and up steps hard to climb, and through shadowy ravines. But oh, my God and Saviour, may the terminus of the journey be the same as the start, namely, at father’s and mother’s knee, if they have inherited the kingdom! Then, as in boyhood and girlhood days, we rushed in after the day’s absence with much to tell of exciting adventure, and father and mother enjoyed the recital as much as we who made it, so we shall on the hillside of heaven rehearse to them all the scenes of our earthly expedition, and they shall welcome us home, as we say: “Father and mother, we have come, and brought our children with us.” The old revival hymn described it with glorious repetition:
“Brothers and sisters there will meet,
Brothers and sisters there will meet,
Brothers and sisters there will meet,
Will meet to part no more.”
I read of a child in the country who was detained at a neighbor’s house on a stormy night by some fascinating stories that were being told him, and then looked out and saw it was so dark he did not dare go home. The incident impressed me the more because in my childhood I had much, the same experience. The boy asked his comrades to go with him, but they dared not. It got later and later—seven o’clock, eight o’clock, nine o’clock. “Oh,” he said, “I wish I were home!” As he opened the door the last time a blinding flash of the storm and a deafening roar overcame him. But after a while he saw in the distance a lantern, and lo! his brother was coming to fetch him home, and the lad stepped out and with swift feet hastened on to his brother who took him home, where they were so glad to greet him, and for a long time supper had been waiting. So may it be when the night of death comes and our earthly friends cannot go with us, and we dare not go alone; may our Brother, our Elder Brother, our Friend closer than a brother, come out to meet us with the light of the promises, which shall be a lantern to our feet, and then we will go in to join our loved ones waiting for us, supper all ready, the marriage supper of the Lamb!