Strangers and pilgrims
By A.B. Simpson

       If you have ever tried to plough a straight furrow in the country-I feel sorry for the man who does not know how to plough and more sorry for the man who is too proud to want to know-you have no doubt found it necessary to have two stakes in a line and to drive your horses by these stakes. If you have only one stake before you, you will have no steadying point for your vision, and you can swerve about without knowing it, making your furrows as crooked as a serpent's coil. But if you have two stakes and always keep them in line, you cannot deviate an inch from a straight line, and your furrow will be as an arrow speeding to its target. This can be a great lesson to us in our Christian lives. If we would run a straight course, we must have two stakes-the near and the distant. it is not enough to be living in the present; it is likewise a great and glorious thing to have a distant goal.