the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Bowen's Daily Meditations
"He will be our guide, even unto death." - Psalms 48:14.
The guide of whom? Of those who feel that this world is a labyrinth, and that the secret of its mazes is known only to God, - that it is the camp of an enemy; and that unless the cloud of the presence of God encompass us about, we have no security, not for a moment, - that it is a field thoroughly undermined and honey-combed, with subterranean trains of gun powder in every direction, exploding every minute; and that unless He lead us, we perish. What is the proof of this? Is not this language mere rhapsody? " It certainly is," say men in general; " the world we live in, is on the whole a safe and comfortable world; peace and safety wait upon our paths." Not so, we reply; we have the best warrant for our language. The number of the dead and dying testifies to the danger. You spread your table on the green sward; you bring forth generous wines; you sit down with your companions, and pass the hour in great conviviality; the birds sing pleasantly in the neighboring grove; the face of nature seems gladsome enough. Nevertheless, the field where you are sitting, is the field of the dead and dying. Are there many that be saved? Not hitherto. The multitude still go in at the broad gate, and hasten to destruction; the few go in at the straight gate, and obtain life. The things that seem to you to smile so friendlily upon you are the mortal enemies of men; the splendid halls to which you hasten have vaults beneath them, and in these vaults myriads of lost souls wait in anguish the day of Judgment. Man is so mortal, that almost anything is deadly to him. "Were you in a battle where nine men out of every ten sent against the enemy were swept rapidly away, you would not say, " Peace and safety."
He is the guide of those who feel their need of an all-wise, all-powerful, all-condescending guide, and who are willing to yield their own preferences to his, their own ideas to his, in traveling over the glaciers of life. This word is a lamp to their feet, a light unto their path. He will hold their hand till they reach the gate of death; and passing through it, they will see that it is the gate of paradise. Death confesses itself vanquished, when it sees them walking on the battlements clothed in white.
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