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A TRAMP OR A TRAVELLER?

A Tramp or A Traveller

 

 

A TRAMP goes from place to place looking for work, sometimes driven by dire necessity, sometimes by choice, and in some cases by the bondage of habit and moral helplessness. He camps under bridges, in sheds, in hollow trees, in the “Moon and Stars Hotel, Ground Floor”, anywhere and in all conditions of weather to eke out an existence. He may cover a great deal of country and endure a lot of hardship, seldom getting any genuine sympathy or help even from those who are well able to give it. But whatever the cause he is a wanderer with no special destination. He moves about, but, to use a common expression, he gets nowhere.

 

A traveller knows his objective. He is going to a certain place. His journey has a purpose which distinguishes it from the wanderings of the tramp.

 

So in life there are two classes of people. First, there are the tramps who wander from day to day, from task to task, from pleasure to pleasure with very hazy ideas, if any about the future, and no certainty that their course will lead them to the only Home that can never be broken up by death or blighted by sin and sorrow.

 

 

 

Then there are the travellers who, through God’s mercy, have found the Way of Life. Their course is set and their goal is in view.

 

“I’m going on a long journey,” said a young man to his friend one day. “What about coming with me?” “Alright, but I’ll have to get my swag.”

 “No, you don’t need any swag on this journey!” His mate was mystified by this and other remarks. Later on he said, “I know what that journey is now,” and the two joined forces on the journey to the country where a welcome is certain to all who will come.

Bishop James Montgomery, a noted hymn writer and the grandfather of Field Marshal Montgomery, once wrote:

“Here in the body pent,

Absent from Thee I roam,

Yet nightly pitch my moving tent,

A day’s march nearer Home.”

It has been said that there are three things necessary to constitute a man—a traveller, a starting point, a course and a destination. In the journey through life the same applies.

The starting-point is the cross of Christ where sins are forgiven and rolled away.

The course is the path in which God leads the way, through service which He gives and experiences which He appoints for our good and the good of others.

The destination is the Home where God wants us all to come and live forever, and that is Home sweet home”.

 

If you have not started on the journey, then it is possible to begin now; to cease to be a tramp and become one of God’s travellers.

 

 

 

 

Written: W. ARNOLD LONG

Taken from: THE BUSHMAN’S GUIDE

Acknowledgement: Christian Book Room

Photos by: Kontine Photography 

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