'And Barzillai said unto the king, How long have I to live, that I
should go up with the king unto Jerusalem? 35. I am this day fourscore
years old: and can I discern between good and evil! can thy servant
taste what I eat or what I drink? can I hear any more the voice of
singing men and singing women? wherefore then should thy servant be yet
a burden unto my lord the king? 36. Thy servant will go a little way
over Jordan with the king: and why should the king recompense it me
with such a reward? 37. Let thy servant, I pray thee, turn back again,
that I may die in mine own city, and be buried by the grave of my
father and of my mother. But behold thy servant Chimham; let him go
over with my lord the king; and do to him what shall seem good unto
thee.'-2 SAMUEL xix. 34-37.
_To the Young._
People often fancy that religion is only good to die by, and many
exhortations are addressed to the young, founded on the possibility
that an early death may be their lot. That, no doubt, is a very solemn
consideration, but it is by no means the sole ground on which such an
appeal may or should be rested. To some of you an early death is
destined. To the larger number of you will be granted a life protracted
to middle age, and to some of you silver hair will come, and you may
see your children's children. I wish to win you seriously to look
forward to the life on earth that is before you, and to the end to
which it is likely to come, if you be spared in the world long enough.
The little picture in these verses is a very beautiful one. David had
been fleeing from his rebellious Absalom, and his adversity had
winnowed his friends. He had crossed the Jordan to the hill-country
beyond, and there, while he was lurking with his crown in peril, and a
price on his head, and old friends dropping from him in their eagerness
to worship the rising sun, this Barzillai with others brought him
seasonable help (xvii. 23), When David returned victorious, Barzillai
met him again. David offered to take him to Jerusalem and to set him in
honour there, The old man answered in the words of our text.
Now I take them for the sake of the picture of old age which they give
us. Look at them: the intellectual powers are dimmed, all taste for the
pleasures and delights of sense is gone, ambition is dead, capacity for
change is departed. What is left? This old man lives in the past and in
the future; the early child-love of the father and mother who, eighty
years ago, rejoiced over his cradle, remains fresh; he cannot 'any more
hear the voice of the singing men and women,' but he can hear the
tones, clear over all these years, of the dear ones whom he first
learned to love. The furthest past is fresh and vivid, and his heart
and memory are true to it. Also he looks forward familiarly and calmly
to the very near end, and lives with the thought of death. He keeps
house with it now. It is nearer to him than the world of living men. In
memory is half of his being, and in hope is the other half. All his
hopes are now simplified and reduced to _one,_ a hope to die and be
united again with the dear ones whom he had so long remembered. And so
he goes back to his city, and passes out of the record--an example of a
green and good old age.
Now, young people, is not that picture one to touch your hearts? You
think in your youthful flush of power and interest, that life will go
on for ever as it has begun, and it is all but impossible to get you to
look forward to what life must come to. I want you to learn from that
picture of a calm, bright old age, a lesson or two of what life will
certainly do to you, that I may found on these certainties the old, old
appeal, 'Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth'.