[Jan. 12th, 1868.]
There is a remarkable difference as to this verse in the versions. The Septuagint assumes a different reading: “Cause me to know thy right hand and those cordially, or in heart, instructed in wisdom.” So the Vulgate. Luther’s version: “Let us remember that we must die, in order that we may be wise.” De Wette: “Teach us to number our days, that we may attain a wise heart.” Young: “To number our days aright, let us know; and we bring the heart to wisdom.” Alexander: “The number of our days let us know, and we will bring a heart of wisdom.” Our version gives the true idea; a proper estimate of life tends to wisdom.
Life is short and uncertain. To act as though it were indefinitely long, or as though the possession of it was secure, is folly. This is a folly of which most men are guilty, and to which all men are exposed. We are ourselves sensible how little we lay to heart the brevity and uncertainty of life. How much we live as though we should live always. At twenty or thirty we live and feel as to life’s continuance as we did at ten or fifteen. At fifty or seventy, it is all the same. We live in the present, and the present is as real at one age as at another. It requires an effort, therefore, to bring this truth home to our minds, so that it shall really affect and control our lives.
This is difficult from the nature of the case. Duration is equable. There is nothing in time itself to mark the transition from one moment to another. The same is true of motion.
Nothing indicates the passage from one portion of space to another, but passing by some fixed object. Thus men feel in a balloon or on the ocean. Motion is noticed if the ship moves faster than the water; but not if it is only carried forward by a current. We are not sensible of the motion of the earth through space. Thus we are insensible to the flight of time. We have reason to pray that God would impress us with a sense of its rapidity, its brevity, its uncertainty. The reason in this matter must control the feelings.
There are two measures of time,—days, months and years being one, and events the other. A portion of time in which nothing specially important has occurred, may be as long as that which has determined the fate of an individual or of nations. What three years of the world’s history can compare with those of our Lord’s ministry? How far more important the first fifty years of the Church than the centuries that followed. How vast the consequences of the events of the Reformation period. How has the state of our country been changed by the four years of war just ended. How has the state of Europe been changed by the six weeks’ campaign of the Prussian army.
So with the individual. If he is called upon to number his days he will estimate them not by hours, but by events. The years of his conversion, of his call to the ministry, of his ordination, of his entering into some special field of labor. One year may contain more to think of, more that moulds his destiny than all the other years of his life. The year a man yields to temptation may decide his fate for eternity.
The first lesson this teaches us is, the unspeakable value of time. In time we determine our eternal state. In time we do all we are ever to do for the good of others, or for our own advancement in good, or for the glory of God. This is our day for work. After this the night cometh when no man can work.
The second lesson is humility and penitential sorrow that our time has run so much to waste. What have we done? What progress in knowledge? Have we increased in piety? What have we accomplished for the Church or for the world? No man can make this review of life without being deeply sensible how greatly he has sinned; how he has wasted or allowed to lie unimproved this great talent of time which God has committed to our hearts. Regret is unavailing. Lost time and opportunity cannot be recalled.
The third lesson is that we should be brought to the solemn determination to make the most of the few days that remain. They must be few. They may be almost gone. Therefore let us apply our hearts unto wisdom. Let us be wise, wise in improving to the utmost our remaining days in living nearer to God, praying more, holding more constant intercourse with God our Saviour, in studying more, in laboring more for the good of others, for the progress of truth and holiness among men.
Fourth lesson: Gratitude to God for his forbearance and his abounding mercy to us, unprofitable servants.
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