There is perhaps no truth which is more generally admitted and which
is more frequently referred to than that life is short and time is
fleeting, that--"man born of a woman," as Job expresses it, "is of
few days and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower and is
cut down." Every tolling knell that resounds its muffled voice from
the church's spire, every painful sickness that casts us upon a
weary and dreary couch, every change of season in nature's annual
round and tearing off one leaf after the other from the calendar,
until the present date, the 31st day of its last messenger, bids us
discard the whole,--all these are just so many solemn and constant
monitors reminding us of the brevity, the rapidity of time's flight.
And yet, with all these numerous and unmistakable evidences of the
transitoriness of all earthly things, how little of an abiding
impression they produce! Who of us, in thoughtful reflection,
does not admit the necessity of asking in this matter for divine
instruction and of preparing ourselves for the time when time shall
be no more, and when we shall be called upon to give account of how
we have used our earthly days, and to leave this world and all its
concerns? It is to this that I would invite your thoughts on this
day which marks the concluding day of another chapter of life's
calendar. May God's Holy Spirit teach us to number our days, that
we may apply our hearts to wisdom, as I endeavor to explain and
apply the words of our text.
Human life, man's natural existence, is most aptly represented by
the figure before employed, the fading of a leaf. More than two
thousand years ago did the inspired penman, the Prophet Isaiah,
write these lines, and yet its truth is preached to us with
unfailing regularity and solemnity in every recurring autumn. As we
go out into the woods towards the close of each successive summer,
we observe a gradual change in the appearance of the trees. We see
the leaves, first one and then another, and then by degrees all
of them alike, changing their green for a brown and yellow hue,
at length, till, shriveling at the edges and loosening their hold
to their native boughs, the wet and the cold and the wind cause
them to fall to the ground with a sound so soft that it is almost
silence and there, by the action of the elements, they soon decay
and mingle with the earth, out of which they were first produced.
Just so, my brethren, it is with ourselves. As soon as we begin to
live, we begin to die. "Our hearts like muffled drums are beating
funeral marches to the grave." If we succeed in adhering to the tree
of life during the spring and summer of man's allotted years, autumn
and winter of old age will certainly overtake us, and we shall sink
away as surely and as silently as the descending leaves in fall, our
spirits returning to God, who gave them, and our bodies mingling
with the dust from which they were taken. We look over the annals of
the world,--where are those mighty conquerors, a Hannibal, a Cæsar,
an Alexander, a Napoleon, who once made whole nations tremble and
kingdoms fall? Where are those brilliant statesmen, a Bismarck, a
Webster, a Calhoun, and a Clay, upon whose lips admiring senates
hung with wonder and delight? Where are the poets, the historians,
the warriors, the divines, who, each in his day and generation, were
the theme of general conversation, and were lauded with the tribute
of a nation's praise? "Like the baseless fabric of a vision,"--gone.
It is related of Xerxes, the powerful King of Persia, that when
about to cross from Asia over to conquer Greece, he ordered a review
to be made of all his forces on the shores of the Hellespont. A
magnificent throne was erected upon a lofty peak. Seated on this
pinnacle of gold, he gazed upon the unnumbered millions below him
on ship and shore. No sight could have been more dazzling or more
august. The hillsides were white with tents, the sea with ships.
Gay banners floating in the sun, glittering with gold and silver,
weakened the eye by their brightness and beauty; whatever unbounded
wealth and intense love of display could produce or suggest was
there, and in the midst of such transcendent glory and deepest
homage, where multitudinous nobles were urging to kiss the hem of
his garment and worshiped him as a god, the great king, Xerxes,
wept. Amazed at such an act, expressive of feelings so contrary to
those in which they were indulging, they reverently inquired the
cause of his tears. "Alas," said he, "of all this vast multitude not
one will be left upon the earth a hundred years hence." That was
said more than two thousand years ago. How many generations have
followed that, over which he wept and uttered this sad truth! We
occupy their places now for a few days, and then we shall lie beside
them. Of the congregation that is looking up into my face this
morning, twenty, thirty, fifty years, where shall it be? The church
bell will be rung out, I hope, from its steeple, but it shall be
rung by other hands, and for other worshipers. This pulpit will be
filled by another preacher and the pews by other listeners. As you
would pass in your way home from its door, in your family and social
circles, how you would miss the old and once familiar forms, yea,
perhaps our very homes will be occupied by strangers. As the prophet
says: "We all do fade as a leaf."
Lest our subject should be rendered useless by being too general,
I will proceed, without further delay, to apply our text and this
by addressing the various classes of persons among you, so that
all, by the baptism of the Holy Ghost, may derive some spiritual
benefit. That our text refers not to one class, but to every, is
evident from the word "all,"--"We all do fade as a leaf." It applies
itself, then, first to the young. Not only in autumn and winter,
but even in the spring and early months of the year, leaves are
seen to fall. And similarly, as the inscriptions upon the many
tombstones in our last resting-places will testify, so many of
the human family disappear in infancy and youth. It is a mournful
sight to see them thus carried off in the vigor and tenderness of
opening bloom, but it's one that ought to convey solemn teaching
to those of youthful years. And what teaching? Wise King Solomon
has expressed it in these words: "Remember thy Creator in the days
of thy youth." And why? Because it is the most favorable time,
the most God-honoring time, the most profitable. At no other time
is the soul so capable of deep and abiding impressions, are the
affections more easily touched and moved, are we more accessible
to the influences of emotions and truth. It is preeminently the
choosing time, the valley of decision, in which at almost every step
we do or leave undone something which has its effect, for good or
ill, upon one's future habits and character and eternity; and you
can only be prepared to determine matters that call for decision
when you have made the great decision; you can choose and act safely
and wisely in all the other departments of life, the social, the
intellectual, the moral, only when you have taken a decisive stand
upon the subject of religion. Hence, our Savior urgently entreats
young people: "Seek ye first," first in point of importance and
first in point of years, "the kingdom of heaven." Ah, my young
members, if the sun does not dispel the mists pretty early in the
morning, you may look with reasonable certainty for a foggy day,
and so if the Sun of Righteousness, Christ Jesus, does not early
in the day of your lives dispel the mists of unbelief and sin, the
chances are that it will be more or less gloomy obstruction the rest
of your lives. You will never be such Christians as you would have
been; there will not be the development of character as if you had
started at the right time, and there will always be a feeling of
regret in your heart. Note, then, that this is the time to begin
to serve God; now is the time to put the yoke of Christ upon your
necks and to break yourselves in for lives of usefulness. And what
is more God-honoring? Religion is always an ornament, it decorates
the silvery locks and the wrinkled brow, but it looks exquisitely
attractive and suitable when worn by youth. God accepts the sinner
at all times, even when he comes with tottering footsteps and with
stooped back; but is it right to do service to another and make Him
suspend His claim as your rightful Lord to satisfy the world and
the flesh, His degrading rivals, to sow wild oats in the springtime
of your years and send Him forth to gather among the stubbles the
gleanings of life, after the enemy has secured the harvest? Nay, to
Him belong the first-born of your days, the first-fruits of your
season, the price of your love and devotion,--give them. You will
never regret it. Incalculable are the benefits of early piety,
beneficial for body and business, for character and connections,
for mind and morals, for after-life and life after death; for, as
our text inculcates, your earthly existence hangs but on a slender,
frail, and feeble fiber. Do you know of none in your circle of
acquaintances swept low by the grim reaper whom we call death? And
what assurance have you, my youthful hearers, that you may not be
among his victims in the succeeding year? Glory not, then, in your
health and strength. Pride yourself not on anything which is so
feeble and frail, but seek those solid blessings which are to be
found in Christ Jesus, and make true preparation against the time
when you shall go hence and be no more. "Remember thy Creator," thy
Redeemer, thy Sanctifier, "in the days of thy youth."
Again, the text addresses itself to the middle-aged. Scarcely a
summer passes over our heads but some tempests, lightning, hail,
rain, and thunder, rage in the sky, and these commotions of the
elements drive myriads of leaves, although then firmly grown and
filled with sap, from their branches to the ground, and there,
like those that fall later, they fade away. It is so with man. In
the midst of all his hustling industry and matured vigor, when, as
Job says, his bones are moistened with marrow, he is liable to be
carried off by various diseases and casualties. Absalom died before
his father. The list of orphans in the Bible is not small, and among
us those attired in sable garments, because of those whose sun has
gone down at noon, are not few. A tender leaf, which the first
strong wind, the first descending shower loosens in its hold,--that
is man in the strength of his days. And what does that teach those
of maturer years? That they presume not on their sturdiness, and
that they forget not, amidst the distractions of all manner of
connection for what life has been given, and correspondingly rightly
improve it. Life has been given us for a high and noble purpose; it
is not only a time of preparation and of probation for the world
to come, it is a time of activity, of usefulness in the service
of God and fellow-man, and "he most lives who thinks the most,
feels the noblest, acts the best." There are those who live a mere
animal life, whose sublimest principle and purpose is embodied in
the motto: "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we shall be dead."
As for God, heaven, and eternity, there is none. There are those
who live a mere worldly life; gaining a livelihood and property,
acquiring a social standing and a position, perhaps a ribbon or a
medal,--that's their life's chief object and design. There are those
who lead bad lives, diabolical lives, making society miserable and
families wretched; and there are those who lead good lives, morally
and socially, providing things honestly in the sight of all men. But
there is one class that, according to Scripture, lives a right life,
a life that will bear the sight of the Judge eternal and receive His
heavenly plaudit: "Well done, thou good and faithful servant," and
that is the man and the woman who lives a Christian life, a life
in Christ Jesus, who, while believing in Him as their only Lord
and Savior, are seeking to imitate His precepts; who live to His
glory, with the furtherance of His kingdom constantly in mind; who
make everything that they undertake and do conducive to the praise
and honor of their God; who delight to render their time, talents,
and means in such a service. Any other kind of a life but that is a
life of God's grace neglected, of moments wasted in selfishness, in
indolence, in sensuality often, in wickedness, and it fails of the
purpose for which time has been given. Let us be careful, then, how
we employ it; never live a week in vain; having something at the
close of it for the reviewing eye to fix upon; something for God,
for your fellow-creatures, for yourself. Live for Christ, and thus
best live while you live, and be best prepared when you are called
upon to die, for as you live, thus will you die, and thus will you
be judged.
There remains, however, one more class to which our text refers with
great propriety, and that is the aged.
If the young and middle-aged may fall, the old must; there is no
remedy or human skill, or physician's antidote against the wrinkled
brow, the failing memory, and the stiffening of the joints. "The
days of our years," says the Psalmist, "are threescore years and
ten, and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is
their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly
away." How soon this may take place, who can declare? What attitude,
then, becomes those who have upon them declining years? I know no
better answer than to gaze upon that patriarchal couple in to-day's
Gospel, Simeon and Anna; what a beautiful picture of declining life
as it is calmed and brightened by the comforts of religion and the
hope of nearing heaven. How impressive to see them meet in the
temple of God, and taking upon their arms the blessed object of
their faith and prayer for all those long rolling years, speaking
of Him, as it says, unto all them that looked for redemption in
Jerusalem, finally singing their "Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant
depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation." "The hoary
head is a crown of glory," says Solomon, "if it be found in the way
of righteousness." Let the aged saints, then, among us use their
advancing years to speak, as years' and hearts' experience alone
can speak, of Him who is their Salvation and Consolation; let them,
by the respect due them, cause us to more greatly respect Him whom
they have learned to know, and by their lives be an example to the
younger generations how to live.
Having, then, regarded our text: "We all do fade as a leaf," let us
have learned, as these years pass away, how to receive the crown,
incorruptible, and undefiled, and which passeth not away. Amen.