Another year has passed into the shadows, a new year has dawned, and before us stretches the unknown path to be trodden in the days, weeks, or months of its course. No knowledge of one future step, no insight into the future, do we need; but what we do know and what causes the heart to cease from troubling is that we are "going home."

How sweet the thought! What a chord of joy passes over the harp-strings of the heart as we think upon the sure end of our path. Shadows may fall across it this year, sorrows unknown may come upon us this year, trials all unexpected may assail us this year, the fires of persecution may burn this year, many a stumbling step we may take this year, but there is One who is ever near (Phil. 4:5), whose face can be looked upon in the dark night when the winds are howling and waves are tossing high (John 6:18-21), upon whom if we steadfastly gaze we can walk upon the waters at His bidding (Matt. 14:29), One whose voice we can hear above the tempest saying, "It is I:be not afraid," One who though He must gently rebuke us, rebukes too the winds and the sea, and a great calm comes over the tempestuous scene; it fills our own quaking hearts-lot the peace of God, and the God of peace is with us.

What a Pilot, what a Saviour, what a Captain, what a Master sails with us in our ever onward course, "to the other side," for we are "going home!"

What a home! The Father is waiting there. The Son Himself will put us into haven there, when at last even the faintest shadow will have passed, the last cloud on our sky will have come and gone, the last doubt, the last unbelieving thought, the last of our coldness and failure, the last of our stumbling steps, the last fold of the obscuring veil of time and sense will have been folded up, and in the never-to-be-dimmed luster of that glorious shore, "at home," we shall see HIM in all His beauty, in all His glory-that Face once so marred for us, then seen in its proper glory, and seeing Him we shall be like Him!

What a home-coming-Home! It speaks of rest, of comfort, of love, of fellowship, all with the Father and the Son, and we as sons with Them. "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed!"

O beloved, you and I are going Home. Then let us sing the songs of Home on our pilgrim way, and as strangers to all that does not belong to the holy, happy circle of that Home, live for Him, live with Him, day by day. Thus would He be our Companion on this homeward journey, and so afford us foretastes of its blessedness.

Of each of us let it be true:

"My heart is bounding onward
Home to the land I love;
Its distant vales and mountains
My wishful passions move;
Fain would my thirsting spirit
Its living freshness breathe;
And weary steps find resting

Its hallowed shades beneath."

With thoughts of going Home filling our hearts, we will live better, love better, serve better, for as there already in spirit where,

"No soil of nature's evil,
No touch of man's rude hand,
Shall e'er disturb around us
That bright and peaceful land.
The charms that woo our senses
Shall be as pure as fair,
For all, while stealing o'er us,
Shall tell of Jesus there,"

we shall grow more "perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." John Bloore