A Blessed Article

I thought my readers would enjoy this stimulating brief article from F.W. Boreham's book, "The Luggage of Life." 

THE TIRELESS TRUDGE

WHILST the fire crackled cheerily between them two
friends of mine discussed a knotty point. The ques-
tion under debate was, briefly, this: Which is the
most trying part of a long journey? One argued
for the initial steps on setting out. The weary road,
he said, stretches out interminably before you.
Every stick and stone seems to be shouting at you to
turn back and to take your ease. His friend, on
the other side of the hearth, thought quite differ-
ently. He contended stoutly for the final stage of
the pilgrimage. He vividly pictured the exhausted
pedestrian at the end of his journey, scarcely able
to drag one blistered and bleeding foot in front of
the other. It is certainly rather a fine point; but,
after all, it was really not worth discussing, for
nothing is more absolutely clear than that they were
both wrong. Which, of course, is the usual fate of
controversialists.

Now the worst part of a journey is neither at its
beginning nor at its close. There is a certain in-
describable exhilaration arising from the making of
the effort which imparts elasticity to the muscles and
courage to the mind, at starting. The road seems
to dare and challenge the pilgrim, and he swings off
along the taunting trail with a keen relish and a
buoyant stride. And, at the other end, the twinkling
lights of the city that he seeks help him to forget
that he is footsore and choked with the dust of the
road. His blood tingles with the triumph of his
achievement and the delight of nearing his goal.
But there is another stage concerning which neither
of my friends had a word to say. What of the
intermediate stage? What of the long and lonely
tramp? What of the hours through which no
applauding voices from behind can encourage and
no familiar fingers from before can beckon? This,
surely, is the worst part of the way! There is no
intellectual stimulant so intoxicating as the forma-
tion of a noble purpose, the conception of a sudden
resolve, the making of a great decision. And, in the
luxurious revelry of that stimulus the prodigal finds
it easy to rise from the degradations of the far coun-
try and to fling himself with a will along the great
Phoenician road. And at the other end! Surely
the most overpowering of all human instincts and
emotions is that which holds captive every nerve at
the dear sight of home! No; neither the first nor the
last steps of that familiar journey were very
hard to take. But between the one and the other !
What questionings and forebodings ! What haltings
and backward glances! What doubts and fears!
Yes, there can be no doubt about it, both my friends
were wrong.

It is the intermediate stage that tests the mettle of
the man. It is the long, fatiguing trudge out of
sight of both starting-point and destination that
puts the heaviest strain on heart and brain. That
is precisely what Isaiah meant in the best known and
most quoted of all his prophecies. He promises
that, on the return from Babylon to Jerusalem,
'they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their
strength ; they shall mount up with wings as eagles ;
they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall
walk, and not faint/ Israel is to be released at last
from her long captivity. Imagine the departure
from Babylon its fond anticipations, its rapturous
ecstasies, its delirious transports ! Those first steps
of the journey were not trying; they were more
like flying. The delighted people walked with
winged feet. And the last steps with Jerusalem
actually in sight, the pilgrims actually climbing the
mountains that surrounded the holy and beautiful
city what rush of noble and tender emotions would
expel and banish all thought of weariness! But
Isaiah is thinking of the long, long tramp between
the drag across the desert, and the march all void
of music. It is with this terrible test in mind that
he utters his heartening promise: 'They shall walk
and not faint.' They would fly, as on wings of
eagles, out of Babylon at the beginning; they would
run, forgetful of fatigue, into Jerusalem at the
end; but they should walk and not faint. That is
life's crowning comfort. The very climax of divine
grace is the grace that nerves us for the least
romantic stage of the journey. Farewells and wel-
comes, departures and arrivals, have adjusting com-
pensations peculiar to themselves ; but it is the glory
of the gospel that it has something to say to the
lonely traveller on the dusty tract. Religion draws
nearer when romance deserts. Grace holds on when
the gilt wears off.

Two cases come to mind. I know a man whose
whole delight was in his boy a little fellow of six
or so. Then, suddenly, like lamps blown out by a
sudden gust, the lad's eyes failed him, and he was
blind. The father was the recipient of scores of
touchingly sympathetic letters. All sorts of people
called. Kindly references were made in press and
pulpit. The man had no idea until that moment that
he had so many friends. All the world seemed to
be paying homage to his sorrow. That was the be
ginning. After many years the boy had been taught
to interpret the world again by means of his remain-
ing senses. There was nothing he could not do. He
earned his own living, and his sightlessness seemed
no real hindrance to him. That was the end. But
the father told me that the strain of it all came
between these two. There came a time when the
postman brought no cheering letters. Friends
uttered no heartening words. The world had trans-
ferred his boy's blindness into the realm of the nor-
mal and the commonplace. Nobody noticed. But
in the home the little fellow staggered about, and
his parents' hearts ached for him. What was to
become of him? It was during those intervening
years lying between the first crushing blow and the
final relief that the real strain came. That was by
far the worst stretch of the road.

I knew a woman. Without a moment's warning
she was plunged into widowhood, and left to battle
for her five little children and herself. There was
an extraordinary outburst of affectionate sympathy
on the part of all who knew her. Then came the
funeral. After that the world went on its way again
as though nothing had happened. That was the
beginning. After the years, the battle had been
well fought and well won. The children had been
clothed, educated, and placed in positions of useful-
ness and honour. That was the end. But my
widowed friend told me that she did not forget
when the world forgot. Every morning her grief
woke up with her. And every night it followed her
to her rest. Every day, as she struggled for her
little ones, the haunting question tortured her:
What would become of them if sickness or death
seized upon her? That was the killing time. That
intermediate stretch was the worst part of the
desolate way.

As it is with individuals, so it is with great causes.
A crusade is launched amidst vituperation, derision,
and execration. And there is enough fight in most
of us to lend a certain enjoyment to the very bitter-
ness of antagonism. And at last the self -same
movement is crowned with triumph. But the real
inwardness of the struggle lies midway. William
Wilber force used to say that he was less dismayed
by the storm that broke upon him when first he
pleaded the cause of the slave than by the 'long lull'
that followed when the country accepted his prin-
ciples, but did nothing to hasten their realization.
In America the same thing happened. The war
against slavery was undertaken with a light heart.
Young men sprang to the front in thousands with
the refrain of 'J^lm Brown's body' on their lips.
But the real struggle was not then, nor towards the
close, when victory and emancipation were in sight.
But who can forget the long agony of disaster that
intervened between those two? It was when the
nation was trudging tearfully along that blood-
marked track that the real suffering took place.
The same experience repeats itself in the history of
every great reform. Some one has said that every
movement has its bow-wow stage, its pooh-pooh
stage, and its hear-hear stage. Of those three
phases the central one is infinitely the most diffi-
cult to negotiate. Between the howl of execration
that greets the suggestion of a reform and the shout
of applause that announces its final triumph there
is a long and tiresome stretch of steep and stony
road that is very hard to tread. They are God's
heroes who set a stout heart to that stiff brae, and
walk and not faint.

In his Autobiography Mark Rutherford tells of
his fierce struggle with the drink fiend. On one
never-to-be-forgotten night he resolutely put the
glass from him and went to bed having drunk noth-
ing but water. 'But,' he continues, 'the struggle
was not felt just then. It came later, when the first
enthusiasm of a new purpose had faded away.'
And, in his Deliverance he applies the same prin-
ciple in a more general way. He is telling of the
stress of his life as a whole. 'Neither the first
nor the last/ he says, 'has been the difficult step with
me, but rather what lies between. The first is
usually helped by the excitement and promise of
new beginnings, and the last by the prospect of
triumph. But the intermediate path is unassisted
by enthusiasm, and it is here we are so likely to
faint.' I cannot close more fittingly than by setting
those two striking sentences over against each other :
'It is here we are so likely to faint/ says Mark
Rutherford, speaking of the long and tiresome inter-
mediate phase. 'They shall walk and not faint/
says the prophet in reference to precisely the same
circumstances and conditions. Wherefore let all
those who are feeling the toilsome drudgery of the
long and unromantic trail pay good heed to such
comfortable words.