Path

“ The path does not march straight to any point predetermined by man, but loops, and zigzags, and retreats, and returns on itself, like the course of a river beset by rocks and shoals, and parcelled into wandering streams, and lagging in morasses. ”

“ The path, or track rather, changes direction at every moment, wriggling in and out among the rocks, over fallen masses, down descents where the brambles throw long streamers across one's path to arrest progress ”

“ The path the iron worker daily treads at the edge of the sandy platform, that narrow path that lies between running streams of fire on the one hand and a sheer drop on the other, is but an emblem of the Road of Life along which he must walk. ”

“ Our path is strangely smooth, as though some hitherto sea had congealed and left a frozen plain, which gives us grateful relief until our direction ceases and the last marked path stops, and an icy lobe rears high before us. ”

“ Then the dim lips of the shadow moved—I heard a faint voice call:
‘On! on! Time must never linger; Death, the king, is end of all.’
So along the path we wandered—oh! the bliss of those short hours!
Youth and Hope and Joy together 'mid the everblooming flowers
That on life's smooth path were glowing soft beneath my naked feet,
Till I envied nought in Heaven, thinking here my lot complete.
As I raised the flowering branches that across my path would stray,
Lo! I found amidst the blossoms at my feet Love sleeping lay. ”

“ The road is the simplest of these emblems—with its milestones for years, its direction posts to show you the way, its inns for feasting, its churches for prayer, its crossroads of destiny, its happy corners of love and meeting, its sad ones of bereavement and farewell; its backward vista of memory, its forward one of hope.
Life certainly is like a road, or a network of roads; like a highway for some, like a pleasant country road for others, like a crooked lane for some, like a path that bends back to its beginnings for most. ”

“ A path perishes when, like some dim forest track, it dies out, leaving the traveller bewildered amid impenetrable forests, or when, like some treacherous Alpine track among rotten rocks, it crumbles beneath the tread. Every course of life but that of the man who delights in and keeps the law of the Lord comes to a fatal end, and leads to the brink of a precipice, over which the impetus of descent carries the reluctant foot. "The path of the just is as the shining light, which shineth more and more till the noontide of the day. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Through all, my guide preserved the steady equability of one who was travelling a well-worn path—some notched tree, some small stone heap, some fissured rock, being his guide through wastes, where, it seemed to me, no human foot had ever trod. ”

“ It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond side, and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct. So with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty then must be the highways of the world—how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity. ”

“ The path at first leads off through fields of real flowers, betokening the early part of the Christian life, neither difficult nor uninviting. In the distance a dark mist, hovering over the track, conceals from the advancing wayfarer the real difficulties of his journey, and betokens the sorrows which of necessity befall him. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Difficult paths do not exist for him; in fact, path simply means the distance across a given area; what may lie between the beginning and the end of the journey is to him a matter of the utmost indifference. ”

“ As our honor parts us. But often in the woods we find a place where the road ends in a field or hill, and there the tracks cross and intersect each other, and in this hour I feel that my path has come to an end. ”

“ Our thoughts are so rarely turned to the road where every stile and path is familiar, but more often they run amuck wherever we catch sight of anything that bears a likeness to a trail, and we’re ready to swear it’s the King’s highway. ”

“ When one has spent the early morning hours of a journey, in which no steps may be retraced, in following a fairly straight and level path through a familiar wood, hindered only by a few briers, with sheltering trees above, pleasant vistas on every side, and in friendly company, hope rises high and straightway trusts the path ahead. ”

“ The road—if road it could be called—wound for the first five miles through the heart of an immense forest, and being, in every sense of the word, a by-path, was completely overshadowed by projecting branches of trees, so closely interwoven, as to prevent a single sunbeam from making its way, even at noon, within the arch. ”

“ You will come across many rough and difficult places, but do not turn aside, though the path leads you over them. You may see other paths that lead round them, but don't turn off from the narrow one. Don't take the others; they don't lead up, they lead down. The straight path is the only right one. ”

“ Our guide shall be the first good foot-path, because we cannot have a better; and if you would thoroughly enjoy the ramble, you must follow the path silently, and observe every thing with which it presents you. ”

“ That path is the path of life, and these pitfalls and snares and by-paths that endanger the unwary traveller on every hand, are the temptations that beset a man in life, and lure him to his ruin and death. ”

“ Now, in the dewy freshness of the early morning, we see that we are on a broad table-land, and not on the summit of the mountain as we had fondly hoped. We notice paths running in all directions,—some go straight to the top of the mountain, others stop at different places along the route. Only the future can decide which path each shall take. ”

“ But what will be the path which it pursues? We are so accustomed to see a stone thrown into the air moving in a curved path, that we might [Pg 145] naturally think a body projected into free space will also move in a curve. ”

“ Close by here thou canst easily find a path which will lead thee thither. If thou wouldst go aright, follow the straight path, otherwise thou mayst easily go astray among the many other paths. Thou shalt see the spring which boils, though the water is colder than marble. ”

“ There is this advantage, too, sir, over the university,—the track in which you are to travel is marked out for you; you must not stray to the right or to the left,—while in 'the world' the field of direction is wide, open, and expanded; there's a path for every one, if they 'll only look for it. ”

“ When we are sauntering in the wood we sometimes come upon pathways, and we know at once that many, many footsteps of men or animals have been needed to make the paths. If those who walked here had wandered each in his own way, no path would have been made. One pair of feet going often over the same ground will make a path. ”

“ There are attractive things just a footstep or two out of the path—such a little deviation that it can easily be recovered. And so, like children gathering daisies in the field, we stray away from the path ”

“ 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. ”

“ Every path but your own is the path of fate. Keep on your own track, then. ”

“ A path beaten smooth by the feet of travellers skirts the edge, or, perhaps, runs by way of short cut through the middle of the field. The seed that falls there, left exposed on the surface, is picked up and devoured by birds. Behold in one picture God’s gracious offer, man’s self-destroying neglect, and the tempter’s coveted opportunity!
The analogy being true to nature is instantly recognised and easily appreciated. There is a condition of heart which corresponds to the smoothness, hardness, and wholeness of a frequented footpath, that skirts or crosses a ploughed field. ”

“ It is this sort of travellers wherewith, in our day, the downward road is lavishly crowded; men who walk not with the sinful multitude, but on convenient embankments so contrived as to make the great broad road appear immensely distant and precipitous beneath, and the narrow path comfortably near and accessible above. ”

“ I have climbed several higher mountains without guide or path, and have found, as might be expected, that it takes only more time and patience commonly than to travel the smoothest highway. ”

“ And we need not be afraid to yield in this to the practical spirit of the times to discover the light within us. For the path of vision, which isolates for a time the individual, brings him in the end, if his patience and devotion do not give way, to complete union, like the Sufi, with humanity and God. ”

“ The traveller that resolutely follows a rough and winding path, will sooner reach the end of his journey, than he that is always changing his direction, and wastes the hours of day-light in looking for smoother ground and shorter passages. ”

“ Much remains to be done, yet much has been done already, for during the struggle the energic force has become loosened from the centres of self, and has ascended to strengthen and vivify the soul, which becomes strong, fully awakened, and in harmony with the eternal; the flower of the soul is opening, the first step on the Path is taken. ”

“ The long, long road over the moors and up into the forest — who trod it into being first of all? Man, a human being, the first that came here. There was no path before he came. ”

“ This is the highest, noblest form of spirituality;—the divine essence, which can be attained only by those who follow devotedly the path of vision,—those who seek the light that bridges the darkness between eye and soul, and without which there can be no vision. But there is what might be called a workaday spirituality, which is within the reach of all. ”

“ He who in final choice elects the path of Division, chooses Death eternal. You may indeed wend homeward through the devious tangle of reflected rays, but how long, how hard are such paths! I would see your souls with eagle365 swoop make straight for the Central Sun. Look then within you. Man! Woman! Are you what you seem? Till this thought daily; it will bear the harvest of Life.
With analogy for our guide we observe that the first forms of life are crystalline and have two poles. You man, are also a magnetic sphere with physical and spiritual poles. ”

“ As a climber on a mountain-peak may look down the vale up which he had painfully toiled for many days and see the dusty path lying, like a sinuous snake, down all along it, so, when we get up yonder, 'Thou shalt remember all the way by which the Lord thy God hath led thee these many years in the wilderness,' and shalt see the green pastures and the still waters, valleys of the shadow of death, and burning roads with sharp flints, which have all brought thee hither at last. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But, thus this pathway is lost through error, even as in the roads of the earth; for as from one city to another there is of necessity an excellent direct road, and often another which branches from that, the branch road goes into another part, and of many others some do not go all the way, and some go farther round; so in Human Life there are different roads, of which one is the truest, and another the most misleading, and some are less right, and some less wrong. ”

“ I must do as you do? Your way I own
Is a very good way. And still,
There are sometimes two straight roads to a town,
One over, one under the hill.
You are treading the safe and the well-worn way,
That the prudent choose each time;
And you think me reckless and rash to-day,
Because I prefer to climb.
Your path is the right one, and so is mine.
We are not like peas in a pod,
Compelled to lie in a certain line,
Or else be scattered abroad.
’Twere a dull old world, methinks, my friend,
If we all went just one way;
Yet our paths will meet no doubt at the end,
Though they lead apart to-day. ”

“ Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark, For the straightforward pathway had been lost. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This might be the road to Tophet, but it was no road to Brampton. He felt with numbed hands the face of the gateposts. Here was an entrance to some dwelling, and it stood open. The path led through it, and if he left the path he would without doubt perish in a bog-hole. In his desolation he longed for a human face. He might find a good fellow who would house him; at the worst he would get direction about the road. So he passed the gateway and entered an avenue.
It ran between trees which took the force of the downpour, so that it seemed a very sanctuary after the open moor. ”

“ You are as certain of arriving home as is the pathway of the sun laid down before it rises, after it has set, and in the half-lit hours in between. Indeed, your pathway is more certain still. For it can not be possible to change the course of those whom God has called to Him. ”