DEAR READER,
The sand-glass is running out. Another year is gone! Three hundred and sixty-five days past! How silently—yet how quickly again—has grain after grain, particle after particle, hour after hour, dropped in this glass. Deathless hours they are; uncounted, unnoted, and forgotten it may be by man, but every falling grain has been noted by God. The busy pen of Heaven has been marking every moment. Ask thyself the searching question, “Has it been with me a happy year? It has brought me nearer Eternity; but has it brought me nearer God? Does it find me better fitted for Heaven, with more of the pilgrim spirit than I had when the year began?”
What a time for serious thought! Another new year summons thee to a Pisgah-Mount—from the top of one of life’s memorable eminences solemnly to review time past—consider time present—and prepare for time to come. Cast, then, thine eye on the past year’s journey, and how full of impressive recollections is the retrospect!
God has been dealing with thee individually, and speaking to thee surely, in language not to be misunderstood. Hearest thou not the rustling wings of the Angel of Death? Have not his arrows been flying fast and thick, and thousands made his victims? Look back! Seest thou that crowd of fresh-made graves?—they are silent preachers to thee! and this is their silent text and sermon, “Be ye also ready.”
Many of those who slumber underneath these sods were cut down without a note of preparation. One was busied in the market-place; the Angel of Judgment met him there, and before evening he was DEAD! Another was seated at his fire-side, planning bright thoughts and schemes for the future—he never saw the morrow’s sun. Another was in company, loud in godless merriment, and breathing out his blasphemies—a few hours more and he was arraigned at the bar of God! Another flung himself prayerless on his nightly pillow—next morning he awoke—but it was in ETERNITY!
And, reader, has He spared thee? What! cut down others and left thee to count in the review of a past year—fig-tree after fig-tree blighted and fallen—and yet thyself, the most “barren” of all—a fruitless cumberer—still “spared!”
Canst thou calculate on another year? Let these green graves answer. Another year! Thine own grave may be among the number of these silent preachers on another anniversary. Who can tell but the summons may even now be on the wing, “Get thee up and die!” Thou mayest this time next year be reading to others the solemn lesson now read to thyself, “The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.”
Dear reader, if this be a possible thing, take one look forward. If the arrow of death were indeed during this coming year to mark thee out, how would it fare with thee? Couldst thou say with exulting Paul, when he had the prospect of death before him, “I am Now ready”? (II Tim. iv: 6). Are you at peace with God? Are you resting your eternal all on his dear Son? Are you in that blessed state of holy weanedness from this world, and holy preparedness for another and a better, that “living or dying” you can say and feel that “you are Christ’s”?
Would the angel-summons, “Behold! the Bridegroom cometh,” find you exclaiming in joyous rapture, “Even so! come Lord Jesus! come quickly”? Would you be ready to pass from a death full of hope to a judgment divested of all terror—a God reconciled—an immortality of endless glory? These are solemn things and solemn thoughts! Answer them on thy knees—with the solemnities of the past year behind thee—an unseen God above thee—a great eternity before thee. Answer them speedily.
And as ye begin to descend the mount and commence the journey of a new year, let the feeble voice of the old one whisper its dying accents in thine ear, “Seek ye the Lord while He may be found; call ye upon Him while He is near;” for He who testifieth these things saith, “Behold I come quickly!”
(By D. Matheson, Evangelist, born at Huntly—November, 1824)