"
These afford him no satisfaction; they only develop in him the saving sense
of earth's insufficiency; all the scenes of this wilderness state are but
those of thorns, and desert heath, and barren sands; and he cries out in
the midst of his happy home,--"This is not your rest!" Our tent-home may
include every earthly cup, and all the riches and honors of the world, yet
it satisfies not, and the Christian turns from it all to rest and expatiate
in a life to come. Every home here is baptized with tears and scarred with
graves. Its poverty is a burden, its riches are snares, its friends are
taken from us; broken hearts agonized there; restlessness is tossed to and
fro there; and disappointment reigns in every member there. Hence in our
wilderness-home we hunger and thirst, and pine for something more
satisfying. We turn from the shadow to the reality; and realizing the
insufficiency of home as a mere type, we turn with anxious hope to that
which it typifies--our heavenly home.
Heaven is the antitype of the Christian home. There the latter reaches its
consummation, and reaps the rich harvest of its great reward. The Father;
the Mother of us all; our Brethren; our inheritance; our all sufficiency
are there. Yea, all that is included in the dear name of home, is treasured
up there, for the child of God. In that better land he finds the reality of
his home on earth; the latter is but the prophecy of the former:--
"There is my house and portion fair,
My treasure and my heart are there,
And my abiding home.
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