Twilight And Dawn | Page 8

built, and I used to watch how it was made, and think that when I grew up I should like above all things to be a shipwright, for I had heard someone say that was the name of the man who was building this beautiful vessel. Of course, the boats which my brother and I used to make were only toy boats--we generally made them of paper--but however small they were, we were very particular to give each of them at least three tall masts. Then, when it came to sailing them, we had to be content with any water we could find, and generally these three-masted vessels made very short voyages, from one side of a big tub to the other; and though, by rocking the tub, we used to manage to make pretty stormy weather for them, they generally reached the end of their voyage in safety. It was quite another thing when we set our vessels afloat upon what we thought a real river, like the Thames or the Severn; but it was only a brown stream, which, ran along the bottom of a meadow, and was crossed, not by a bridge, but by stepping-stones. Sometimes, on a lovely day in June, we were allowed to go down to our river, and we used to sit for hours among the flags which grew beside it, hidden by the tall reeds and the yellow flowers, making little green boats out of the broad leaves of the flags, while the sound of "Cuckoo, cuckoo" came from the orchard close by.
When we had made as many boats as we could carry, each with a curly-whirly bit of a leaf for its sail, we used to balance ourselves carefully on the stones--for we knew that if we got wet we should not be allowed to go to our river again--and launch our little fleet, one by one, on the brown water, and then eagerly watch each green vessel upon its course. We wanted them to sail across to the other side; but I need not tell you that the river water was very far from being so calm as the water in the tub, and I do not think many got safely over.
One little boat would start off very straight, and then suddenly stop because it had run against some hidden rock; the greater number, in spite of all our efforts to steer them, would get into the current, and so be carried down the stream out of our sight; while some at once turned on their sides, got filled with water, and became dismal wrecks.
I can remember well how happy we were in spite of all such disasters and losses!
But we should have been surprised indeed in those days if anyone had told us, as we launched our boats, and watched them sail away from land--to "America" or "India," or any of those far-away places where we used to pretend they were going--that we were like those boats of ours. And yet it would have been true, for we too had been launched; the voyage of life had begun for us; and every birthday that came found us a little farther from the place from whence we had started--a little nearer to the end of the voyage, the place whither we were bound. Yes, in this sense you and I and all the people in the world are voyagers on the stream of time. But this voyage of our life--how long will it be?
That is one of the things which no one can tell. God alone knows.
In one sense the story of your life may be soon told; your little voyage down the stream of time may be very short, and your boat may reach the great ocean of eternity before many birthdays have come and gone. But in another sense it is a story without an end; and this is what makes your beginning such a great thing to think of. It is a beginning which has no end; the part of you which is most really yourself, must live on always. You can never stop living for one moment; for there is on board your little boat a wonderful passenger. God has put into you a living soul, which can never die.
But how soon God may call that soul back to Himself, away from the body, where it lives now, who can tell?
I am just now thinking of some young voyagers whose passage from time to eternity was indeed short, but the story is so sad that I could not tell you about it if I did not remember what the Lord Jesus once said, when He was teaching His disciples. He called a little child to Him, and began to speak to them about such little children,