'The last time,' what a sad sound that has! In all minds there is a
shrinking from the last time of doing even some common act. The walk
down a street that we have passed every day for twenty years, and never
cared in the least about, and the very doorsteps and the children in
the streets, have an interest for us, as pensively we leave the
commonplace familiar scene.
On this last Sunday of another year, there comes a tone of sober
meditation over us, as we think that it _is_ the last. I would fain let
the hour preach. I have little to say but to give voice to its lessons.
My text is only taken as a starting-point, and I shall say nothing
about Joshua and his prayer. I do not discuss whether this was a
miracle or not. It seems, at any rate, to be taken by the writer of the
story as one. What a picture he draws of the fugitives rushing down the
rocky pass, blind in their fear, behind them the flushed and eager
conqueror, the burst of the sudden tempest and far in the west the
crescent moon, the leader on the hilltop with his prayer for but one
hour or two more of daylight to finish the wild work so well begun!
And, says the story, his wish was granted, and no day has been 'like it
before or since, in which the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man.'
Once, and only once, did time seem to stand still; from the beginning
till now it has been going steadily on, and even then it only seemed to
stand. That day seemed longer, but life was passing all the same.
And so the first thought forced upon us here by our narrative and by
the season is the old one, so commonplace and yet so solemn.