“Look from the top” (Song of Solomon iv. 8).
Yes, our perplexities would become plain if we kept on a spiritual
elevation. How often when the traveler quite loses his way he can soon
find it again from some tree top or some hill top where all the winding
paths he has gone spread behind him, and the whole homeward road opens
before. So, from the heights of prayer and faith, we too can see the plain
path, and know that we are going home.
There is no other way in which we can gain the victory over the world. We
must get above it. We must see it from the side of our great reward. Then
it looks like earthly objects after we have gazed upon the sun for a
while. We are blind to them. When the Italian fruit-seller finds that he
is heir to a ducal palace you cannot tempt him any more with the paltry
profits of his trade or the company of his old associates. He is above it
all. They who know the hope of their calling and the riches of the glory
of their inheritance can well despise the world. It is the poor starving
ones who go hungering for the husks of earth. We are born from above and
have a longing to go home. Let us go forth to-day with our hearts on the
homestretch.