Genesis 30:25

Send me away that I may go unto mine own place, and to my country

The lights of home

There is in Switzerland a hill known as the Heimweh Fluh, or Home-sick Mount.

It is so called because it is usually the last spot visited by the traveller when leaving that part of the country at a time when his thoughts are turned homeward. It commands a glorious view of the whole valley of Interlaken, with its fields and pastures, its villages and lakes, with a back-ground of snow-capped mountains. It is a fair scene, but the heart of the traveller is not there. His thoughts are with his friends and loved ones at home. He looks upon the homesick mount, and seems to murmur with the patriarch Jacob, “Send me away, that I may go unto mine own place, and to my country.” There are many such homesick mounts, such landmarks, to remind us of home. The sailor on the slippery deck points to some dark towering cliff, and says, “We shall soon see the Lizard Light”; or, “Yonder is Beechy Head!” The traveller along the wintry road strains his eyes through the darkness to catch a glimpse of the lights of home. And we, if we have learnt to think of our life here as a pilgrimage, shall often stand, as it were, upon some Heimweh Fluh, some mount of home-sickness, and whilst we gaze on the beauties of this world; we shall feel, “This is not my home, I am a stranger and a sojourner, as all my fathers were.” We shall press onward “through the night of doubt and sorrow,” straining our eyes to catch sight of the lights of home. Let us, by God’s grace, try to live and work for Him daily, and when death comes we can say, without fear, “Send me away, that I may go to mine own place, and to my country.” The dying Baxter, who wrote “The Saints’ Rest,” said, “I am almost well, and nearly at home!” and another dying man exclaimed, “I am going home as fast as I can, and I bless God that I have a good home to go to.” Yes, that thought of home is a blessed one, both for time and for eternity. During the American Civil War the two rival armies were encamped opposite each other on the banks of the Potomac River. When the federal bands played some national air of the union, the confederate musicians struck up a rival tune, each band trying to out-play and silence the other. Suddenly one of the bands played “ Home, Sweet Home,” and the contest ceased. The musicians of both armies played the same tune, voices from opposite sides of the river joined the chorus, “There’s no place like home!” So we, the pilgrim band, are bound together by that one strong link--we are going to our own place and our own country, “Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem.” When that brave soldier of Jesus Christ, Charles Kingsley, lay dying, he was heard to murmur, “No more fighting; no more fighting.” No one knows the full meaning of those words except one who has fought the good fight, whose life has been one long battle with sin. Those words have no meaning for the coward who yielded himself a prisoner to the enemy, the drunkard who never fought against his besetting sin, the angry man who never wrestled with the demon of his temper. What know they of fighting? (H. J.Wilmot Buxton, M. A.)