Desiring Heaven
J. Cumming, D. D. Hebrews 11:15-16 And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from where they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned.… It is said of Tully, when he was banished from Italy, and of Demosthenes, when he was banished from Athens, that they wept every time they looked towards their own country; and is it strange that a poor deserted believer should mourn every time he looks heavenward? The hope of heaven: — What has been the great, and what is now one of the strongest and most influential powers or motives in the human heart? A desire to find some better place, some lovelier spot, than we now have. For what does the tradesman toil? For what does the physician practise? For what does man hope at the decline and the close of life? Some sheltered nook, some quiet spot, where, if he cannot have a rest that will never be moved, he may have, at least, a foretaste and foreshadow of it. What was it that carried Columbus across the western wave, amid insubordination within his ship, and the unexpectedly wild waves that roared and curled around and without? What sustained him on the unsound sea, amid the untraversed waste of waters? The hope of a better country. What was it that sustained the hearts of the Pilgrim Fathers, when, driven forth from this land by stern ecclesiastical persecution, they went to the far distance, and across the western wave, and feared not the ironbound coast or the rugged and unknown territory on which they set foot? It was the hope and prospect of a better, even a free and peaceful country. (J. Cumming, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. WEB: If indeed they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had enough time to return.