The Path is not Long

For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. --Matt 7:14

All must joyfully venture forth on this path, for though the gate is quite narrow, the path is not long. Just as an infant is born with peril and pain from the small abode of its mother's womb into this immense heaven and earth, that is, into this world, so man departs this life through the narrow gate of death. And although the heavens and the earth in which we dwell at present seem large and wide to us, they are nevertheless much narrower and smaller than the mother's womb in comparison with the future heaven.

--Martin Luther, "A Sermon on Preparing to Die," LW 42:99