My young friends, as I sat in that crowded car, many were the thoughts that rose in my mind. I thought this life was but a railroad; we the passengers. Some of us are thoughtful and considerate; many gay and inconsiderate. The railroad of life has many curves, to avoid the current of sin, or the pit of destruction; many a high acclivity of difficulty; many a dark, lonely tunnel of doubt and uncertainty; many a deep cut of affliction, from which the light of God’s countenance seems entirely withdrawn. The route lies along the flower-dressed meadows of happiness, and through the dark, dismal morasses of poverty and want. At one moment all is beauty, loveliness and grandeur; at another, the clouds of God’s wrath gather thick and heavy around us. Some of us are journeying to our heavenly home; others, far from that home, in search of what the world calls enjoyment, but, like the apples of Sodom, bitterness and remorse.
My young friends, if Christ be our engineer and God our conductor, we need fear no evil. All will be well; our journey safe and pleasant: and we shall safely reach a glorious home in Heaven, and there spend an eternity of blissful happiness in the company of the loved and lost who have traveled this road, and reached, without any collision or accident, its termination.
THE SPIRITUAL RAILWAY.
“The line to heaven by Christ was made;
With heavenly truths the rails are laid;
From earth to heaven the line extends;
To life eternal—there it ends.
“Repentance is the station then,
Where passengers are taken in;