A COMMERCIAL traveler was walking down the road out of town a ways when he was joined by another man going in the same direction. The businessman was a Christian, and as they chatted together he was pained to find that the conversation of the stranger was so light and worthless, and almost profane at times. He wished for an opportunity to slip away from his unprofitable companion.
However, before such an opportunity came, they came to a Y in the road. Not knowing which way to take, they decided to ask a farmer boy who was sitting down near the spot with a book in his hand.
The stranger proceeded to use his profane wit on the simple farm boy and called out to him, “Hello, my boy! What book are you reading?”
“The Bible, sir,” was the reply.
“The Bible! So you read that in hopes to find out the way to heaven?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very well; that road I neither know nor care anything about,” he went on. “But tell me, if you can, the road to Salisbury; and I will leave you to dream about the other at your leisure.”
“That, sir,” said the farm boy, pointing in the direction, “is the road to Salisbury. And the road to heaven, blessed be God, is so plain that ‘wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein’.” Isaiah 35:88And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein. (Isaiah 35:8).
“Well said, farmer boy,” thought the Christian traveler, and he raised his heart in gratitude to the “Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to babes.” Matthew 11-25.
ML-04/26/1964