The Way

“ There is a path from the valley for the strangers, the path by which they came; and when the sun stares forth again upon the world, the way shall be open, and there shall be safety for you until your travel ends in the quick world whither you go. ”

“ The way a journey is gone, to come to the point, is walking. Asking many folks' pardon, to tear through the air in an open car, deafened, hilariously muddled by the rush and roar of wind, is to drive observation from the mind: it is to be, in a manner, complacently, intellectually unconscious ”

“ In paths which they saw not, who thought me prisoner, in the paths of Thy righteousness, in the paths of Thy commandments....For every path is a way, but not every way is a path. Why then are those ways called paths, save because they are narrow? Broad is the way of the wicked, narrow the way of the righteous. ”

“ “It ain’t the roads we take; it’s what’s inside of us that makes us turn out the way we do.” ”

“ When paths are smooth, so prone my feet
To wander off in by-ways sweet,
Where beauty hides the poison vine,
Or loosened stones, for feet like mine.
Walk with me, Lord, and counsel give.
Teach me to love, to help, to live. ”

“ Movement, rapid movement of some kind, a ride, the hasty survey of a shelf of books, best of all a conversation like this morning's with a visitor for the first time,—amid the felicitous chances of that, at some random turn by the way, he would become aware of shaping purpose: the beam of light or heat would strike down, to illuminate, to fuse and organise the coldly accumulated matter, of reason, of experience. ”

“ So let the way wind up the hill or down,
O'er rough or smooth, the journey will be joy:
Still seeking what I sought when but a boy,
New friendship, high adventure, and a crown,
My heart will keep the courage of the quest,
And hope the road's last turn will be the best. ”

“ How few are they who find their way to the Realization of their own Divinity? Narrow indeed is the gate and straitened the way that leadeth to the goal. The masses follow the broad path, like fools—but few even see the narrow entrance to The Path. ”

“ The WAY has its beginning, progress, and termination; and the nearer we approach the consummation, the farther is the beginning behind us; it is only by leaving the one, that we can arrive at the other. You cannot get from the entrance to a distant place, without passing over the intermediate space, and, if the end be good, holy, and necessary, and the entrance also good, why should the necessary passage, the direct road leading from the one to the other, be evil? ”

“ I want to know one thing, — the way to heaven; how to land safe on that happy shore. God himself has condescended to teach the way: For this very end he came from heaven. He hath written it down in a book. O give me that book! At any price, give me the book of God! ”

“ Some few years hence, and we shall have ourselves gone the way of all the earth. Other feet will tread the pavement, and other eyes drink in the light, and look upon the works and ways of fellow-mortals ”

“ Where roads are made I lose my way.
In the wide water, in the blue sky there is no line of a track.
The pathway is hidden by the birds’ wings, by the star-fires, by the flowers of the wayfaring seasons.
And I ask my heart if its blood carries the wisdom of the unseen way. ”

“ And if we get in the road at all, pray what are the odds? If we are in, we are in; you are but in the way, who come in at the gate, and we too are in the way that choose to climb the wall. Is not our case as good as yours?
Christian.—I walk by the rule of my Lord, but you walk by the rule of your own lusts. The Lord of the way will count you as thieves, and you will not be found true men in the end. ”

“ The light of truth to us display,
And make us know and love Thy way;
Plant holy fear in ev'ry heart,
That we from God may ne'er depart.
Lead us to holiness, the road,
The narrow road which leads to God ”

“ Our course, Gentlemen, is onward, straight onward, and forward. Let us not turn to the right hand, nor to the left. Our path is marked out for us, clear, plain, bright, distinctly defined, like the milky way across the heavens. ”

“ What adventures we would have by the way, what hard pulls, what prospects from hills, what spectacles we would behold of night and day, what passages with dogs, what glances, what peeps into windows, what characters we should fall in with, and how seasoned and hardy we should arrive at our destination! ”

“ After all, what signify the nettles and brambles by the wayside, when in front lies the road leading to a shining goal of hope, of work, of achievement? What matter a heavy heart and an empty stomach, when you are stuffing your brain to repletion with new impressions and artistic material? ”

“ There are two ways of walking through the world—plodding dejectedly along with our eyes on the muddy road, seeing only the obstacles in our way and feeling only the burdens on our backs; or holding our heads high, seeing the beautiful broad sky above, smelling the scent of flowers, tasting the delights of living and feeling the love of God. ”

“ And an highway shalt be there, and a way and it shall be called The way of holiness, the unclean shall not pass ever it; but it shalt be for those time wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein. ”

“ "The hill, though high, I covet to ascend;
The difficulty will not me offend,
For I perceive the way to life lies here.
Come, pluck up, heart, let's neither faint nor fear.
Better, though difficult, the right way to go,
Than wrong, though easy, where the end is woe." ”

“ You can walk quickly or slowly, or look over your shoulder as you walk, or shoot fairly accurately as you walk; you can saunter, you can force your pace, you can turn which way you will. You certainly did not teach yourself to accomplish this marvel, nor did your nurse. There was a spirit within you that taught you and that brought you out; and as it is with walking, so it is with speech, and so at last with humour and with irony, and with affection, and with the sense of colour and of form, and even with honour, and at last with prayer. ”

“ For the rest, there is a road wandering in an aimless way along the hill-side, like a child at play who is going nowhere, and all along this road are scattered every variety of dwelling, big and little, sombre and gay, humble and pretentious, which the mind of man ever conceived of,—and some of which I devoutly trust the mind of man will never again conceive. ”

“ And a multitude discover this light in their souls, and join the prophets and pathfinders! Everybody goes abroad looking for untrodden paths; from all directions comes the cry: Here and there, to the right, to the left, is the right way! ”

“ "This- is now my way,- where is yours?" Thus did I answer those who asked me "the way." For the way- it does not exist! ”

“ My dear young friends, strait is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth to Eternal Life, and few there be that find it. Few, few, few, for he who will not give up ALL for Christ’s sake, has given up nothing. ”

“ But when an abrupt turn shows there is a steep to climb, the pathway itself becomes confused, indefinite, treacherous, and the guiding voices have scattered, some going one way and some another, what must one do? ”

“ The gates of hell are open night and day;
Smooth the descent, and easy is the way:
But to return, and view the cheerful skies,
In this the task and mighty labor lies. ”

“ Consider how a man walking approaches a little town; he sees it a long way off upon a hill; he sees its unity, he has time to think about it a great deal. Next it is hidden from him by a wood, or it is screened by a roll of land. He tops this and sees the little town again, now much nearer, and he thinks more particularly of its houses, of the way in which they stand, and of what has passed in them. The sky, especially if it has large white clouds in it and is for the rest sunlit and blue, makes something against which he can see the little town, and gives it life. ”

“ Thee will observe that it is up hill all the way, extending beyond thy vision, and that the road is slippery and seemingly impossible to climb, typifying the pathway over which struggling 375genius is forced to go, slipping here and there, oftentimes stumbling, until it plumes its wings for bolder flight, and by determined effort and perseverance wins the goal. ”

“ The roads and paths you have walked along in summer and winter weather, the fields and hills which you have looked upon in lightness and gladness of heart, where fresh thoughts have come into your mind, or some noble prospect has opened before you, and especially the quiet ways where you have walked in sweet converse with your friend, pausing under the trees, drinking at the spring—henceforth they are not the same; a new charm is added ”

“ In every direction we seem to travel but a very short way before we are brought to a stop; our eyes are opened to see that our path is beset with doubts, and that even our best-made knowledge comes but too soon to an end. ”

“ As a matter of fact, you were driven along a road, unaware of anything that lay beyond the hedges, pressed on every side by other members of the flock; getting perhaps a certain satisfaction out of the deep warm stir of the collective life, but ignorant of your destination, and with your personal initiative limited to the snatching of grass as you went along, the pushing of your way to the softer side of the track. ”

“ There is a path across the deep, - The King’s Way, the King’s Way! There’s a path across the deep, - A path the Island ships shall keep; A way by which to those we win, Whose hands we clasp, whose hearts are kin, England’s sons across the sea ”

“ Having thus informed you something of my present locality, I will return to the commencement of my journey, and if you and your readers will follow me in a tour along a very common-place track, I will endeavor to furnish them and you with such GLEANINGS BY THE WAY as I was able to make. ”

“ IX. Way, דרך Debech, from the same root, to proceed, go on, walk, tread. The way in which God goes in order to instruct and save man; the way in which man must tread in order to be safe, holy, and happy. ”

“ This seems to be the law of progress in everything we do; it moves along a spiral rather than a perpendicular; we seem to be actually going out of the way, and yet it [34] turns out that we were really moving upward all the time. ”

“ But much the most of these visions have come to you when you were performing that little miracle with a description of which I began this: and what is more, the visions that you get when you are walking, merge pleasantly into each other. Some are greater, some lesser, and they make a continuous whole. The great moments are led up to and are fittingly framed. ”

“ For it has been so arranged that the moment we begin any minor and terrestrial thing as an object in itself, or with merely the furtherance of some other material thing, we hurt the inward part of us that governs all. But walk for glory or for adventure, or to see new [Pg 8] sights, or to pay a bill or to escape the same, and you will very soon find how consonant is walking with your whole being. The chief proof of this (and how many men have tried it, and in how many books does not that truth shine out!) is the way in which a man walking becomes the cousin or the brother of everything round. ”

“ but even without help I wish and hope to fulfil them. Blame me! I myself do that, but blame me, and not the road by which I go, and which I point out to those that ask me where, in my opinion, the road is. If I know the road home, and go along it intoxicated, staggering from side to side, does that make it any the less the true way by which I go? If it is not the right way, show me another; ”

“ The walks are the unobtrusive connecting thread of other memories, and yet each walk is a little drama in itself, with a definite plot with episodes and catastrophes, according to the requirements of Aristotle; and it is naturally interwoven with all the thoughts, the friendships, and the interests that form the staple of ordinary life.
Walking is the natural recreation for a man who desires not absolutely to suppress his intellect but to turn it out to play for a season. ”

“ If we are not sad we are careworn, hurried, discontented, mortgaging the present for the promise of the future. If we take a walk, it is as we take a prescription, with about the same relish and with about the same purpose ”

“ With a heart
Joyous, nor scared at its own liberty,
I look about; and should the chosen guide
Be nothing better than a wandering cloud,
I cannot miss my way. ”

“ And the spell and the call are likely to grip you at all sorts of inopportune times and places, pulling—pulling—pulling you back to the sunset country and the long trail that leads to the elder worlds. ”

“ In short, by a road which resembles but is not the same as Maupertuis’s road, we find our way to the very world in which we are living, and find that if it be not, it is ever tending to become, “the best of all possible worlds12.” ”

“ It seemed as we moved along as though our whole train was instinct with life, and endowed with magic pinions, which it had only to spread abroad, and skim over the surface of the ground with the fleetness of the wind. ”

“ We see from this elementary example how the thinking out of the theory of the Road is of advantage in practice. It may be urged that the discovery of advantages as time goes on [11] gradually improves the Road, and in this way half-conscious development will always give you the best road in the long run without studying its theory. ”