SOME years ago, a Christian was visiting a friend of his who was a property owner. He happened to say something to his friend about Paradise. The property owner smiled at the remark, and, pointing out of the window towards his extensive estate, said, “There is my Paradise!” The prospect was certainly charming. There were vineyards and meadows, fringed with blooming orchard-trees, stretching away in the sunlight, and sloping by a gentle declivity right down to the margin of a blue lake. On the farther shore a chain of beautiful hills rose into view, and higher still, in the far-off azure, towered the sun-clad summits of the Alps. A glorious picture!
A few years later the Christian again visited his friend. The lake was dancing in the sunshine as smilingly as ever, and the trees wore the same emerald hue. But what about the owner of that vast and beautiful estate, who but a short time before had gloried in it as his Paradise! Alas! he sat in his room, a broken-hearted man, brooding dismally over his sorrows. His favorite son had been drowned before his eyes in that lake: one of his daughters had married unhappily; and an incurable disease had laid hold of him, and he was wasting away under it. While his visitor was there, his younger daughter came into the room. She said, “I am going for a drive into the town, father; is there anything I can fetch you?” The old man savagely replied, “Yes, a revolver!”
What a change in a few short years! Death had entered the paradise of the man who had boasted in his possessions. Sorrow had blighted the scene. And now bitterness was filling his soul. His joy was gone. That of which he once could proudly boast, could now afford him no solace. He was still the possessor of houses and land, but this would not stay the fell destroyer; this would not give him back the lost son; this would not set the loved daughter free from an unhappy yoke. Is it any wonder that he dismally brooded as he sat in hid arm-chair?
Very different was his case from that of the poor old man who sat shaking with palsy before the embers of a fire in an almshouse. On being asked what he was doing, he said “Waiting, sir.” “Wailing for what?” “For the coming of my Lord.” “What makes you wish for His coming?”
“Because, sir, I expect great things then. He has promised that when He shall appear, He will give a crown of righteousness to all that love Him.”
Ah, poor in this world, but rich in faith! With which would you exchange places, if you had to choose between them?
The poor man who had nothing of this world’s goods was certainly the richer of the two for he was about to enter upon an inheritance that would never be taken from him, and when he entered Paradise his joy would know no limit, neither would it ever come to an end. Dear reader, where is your paradise?
ML 03/04/1906