We are quite sure that we shall die. We are sure that a mingled web of
joy and sorrow, light shot with dark, will be unrolled before us--but
of anything more we are really ignorant. We know that certainly the
great majority of us will be alive at the close of this New Year; but
who will be the exceptions? A great many of us, especially those of us
who are in the monotonous stretch of middle life, will go on
substantially as we have been going on for years past, with our
ordinary duties, joys, sorrows, cares; but to some of us, in all
probability, this year holds some great change which may darken all our
days or brighten them. In all our forward-looking there ever remains an
element of uncertainty. The future fronts us like some statue beneath
its canvas covering. Rolling mists hide it all, except here and there a
peak.
I need not remind you how merciful and good it is that it is so.
Therefore coming sorrows do not diffuse anticipatory bitterness as of
tainted water percolating through gravel, and coming joys are not
discounted, and the present has a reality of its own, and is not
coloured by what is to come.
Then this being so--what is the wise course of conduct? Not a confident
reckoning on to-morrow. There is nothing elevating in anticipation
which paints the blank surface of the future with the same earthly
colours as dye the present. There is no more complete waste of time
than that. Nor is proud self-confidence any wiser, which jauntily takes
for granted that 'tomorrow will be as this day.' The conceit that
things are to go on as they have been fools men into a dream of
permanence which has no basis. Nor is the fearful apprehension of evil
any wiser. How many people spoil the present gladness with thoughts of
future sorrow, and cannot enjoy the blessedness of united love for
thinking of separation!
In brief, it is wise to be but little concerned with the future,
except--
1. In the way of taking reasonable precautions to prepare for its
probabilities.