'One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the
earth abideth for ever.'--ECCLES. i. 4.
'And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth
the will of God abideth for ever.'--1 JOHN ii. 17.
A great river may run through more than one kingdom, and bear more
than one name, but its flow is unbroken. The river of time runs
continuously, taking no heed of dates and calendars. The importance
that we attach to the beginnings or endings of years and centuries is
a sentimental illusion, but even an illusion that rouses us to a
consciousness of the stealthy gliding of the river may do us good, and
we need all the helps we can find to wise retrospect and sober
anticipation. So we must let the season colour our thoughts, even
whilst we feel that in yielding to that impulse we are imagining what
has no reality in the passing from the last day of one century to the
first day of another.
I do not mean to discuss in this sermon either the old century or the
new in their wider social and other aspects. That has been done
abundantly. We shall best do our parts in making the days, and the
years, and the century what they should be, if we let the truths that
come from these combined texts sink into and influence our individual
lives. I have put them together, because they are so strikingly
antithetical, both true, and yet looking at the same facts from
opposite points of view, But the antithesis is not really so complete
as it sounds at first hearing, because what the Preacher means by 'the
earth' that 'abideth for ever' is not quite the same as what the
Apostle means by the 'world' that 'passes' and the 'generations' that
come and go are not exactly the same as the men that 'abide for ever.'
But still the antithesis is real and impressive. The bitter melancholy
of the Preacher saw but the surface; the joyous faith of the Apostle
went a great deal deeper, and putting the two sets of thoughts and
ways of looking at man and his dwelling-place together, we get lessons
that may well shape our individual lives.