(David Harsha, "Wanderings of a Pilgrim")

No man begins the journey to the heavenly home,
until by the gracious influence of the Holy Spirit,
his soul is attracted to Christ, the Living Way, the
Truth, and the Life.

At that happy hour when the heart is opened, and
the understanding enlightened to discern spiritual
things, the Savior's love is the first to beam in mild,
sweet, constraining influence upon the soul of the
renewed man.

He wonders that he was not able before to discern
the beauty, the excellence and glory of Immanuel.
Now, Jesus appears to him as the chief among ten
thousand, and altogether lovely. Now, he is ready
to exclaim, "My beloved is mine, and I his. Whom
have I in heaven but you? There is none upon
earth that I desire besides you!"

Thus enlightened by divine grace, the pilgrim turns
from the City of Destruction, to the Heavenly Mansions.

He leaves the crowded road which leads to eternal
darkness and woe, and enters on the narrow pathway
that conducts the weary traveler to realms of light
and bliss.

His views are now elevated above the decaying
objects around him. His affections are placed upon
things above. He contemplates with rapturous delight
the bleeding glories of Immanuel, and the shining
abode of Zion's pilgrims in the celestial kingdom.

He has become a spiritually minded man.

He lives and walks by faith in the Son of God.

Though in the world, he is no longer of it;
but belongs to the kingdom of Jesus Christ.

As an heir of glory, as a traveler to the skies, as an
expectant of eternal bliss, he looks above and beyond
the troublesome scenes of a fleeting pilgrimage.

He enjoys the charming and sublime prospect beyond
the precincts of time! He beholds in that brighter world,
an ocean of glory, without a shore, and without a storm!

As the Christian pursues his journey, with his eye
fixed on the solemn realities of eternity, earth and
sublunary grandeur appear to him as transitory as
the morning cloud and early morning dew, compared
with those immeasurable ages of bliss, which roll
before his transported vision.

He who has been constrained, by the Savior's love,
to begin the blessed journey from the wilderness
of this world to the heavenly Canaan, will delight
to meditate on the riches and glory of his Father's
house, in the pure, unclouded realms of eternal day.