Category: Quote of the Day

I have often been reminded of the wild duck that came down on migration into a barnyard and liked it so well that he stayed there. In the fall his erstwhile companions passed overhead and his first impulse was to rise and join them, but he had fed too well and could rise no higher than the eaves of the barn. The day came when his old fellow travelers could pass overhead without his even hearing their call. I have seen men and women who once mounted up with wings like eagles but are now content to live in the barnyard of this world, Sometimes, in a good old-fashioned meeting under powerful preaching, they may have a momentary impulse to sing the song of saints on higher ground.

My heart has no desire to stay
Where doubts arise and fears dismay.

But they have fed too well down here and the day comes when they no longer respond to the call from on high. It is a tragic thing to settle in the barnyard of this world.

On the farm of my boyhood days, we had an old horse named Bert. I observed that Bert never seemed enthusiastic when we started out in the morning, for he knew that a day’s hard work lay ahead. But, believe it or not, in the late afternoon, when by all odds Bert should have been tired, he climbed the old hill back to the barn with amazing alacrity. I have often reflected that if an old horse knows when he is headed home and joyfully treads his way at sundown, should not we pilgrims of earth, who seek a City, walk liveliest when we near the other side?

One sweetly solemn thought
Comes to me o’er and o’er,
I am nearer home today
Than I’ve ever been before.
– Phoebe Cary“When my thoughts wax warm about whither I am going,” as Christian put it in Bunyan’s immortal classic, I should quicken my pace. The impetus of the homeward trudge!