The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1892-06-21

Sumes hues of wOndrOUs, matchless
beauty, such as no painter who has
Oreathed the Italian atmosphere can
initiate; but then it is the beauty of
death A little more fading, and it is
dead and crumbling. We all do fade
as leaf" You remember the express
sion of Job: Man that is born of a
woman, is of few days, and full of
trouble. He cOmeth forth like flower
and IS cut down; he fleeth as a shadow,
and continueth not" >" Yes, he is com
pared to the flower, It comes, it is
beautiful, it is an ornament, but it
Is soon gone. You see the shadow
but as the sun marches through the
heavens its position changes in little
while and the shadow disappears en-
tlrely. But how many expressions are
there IN the S ;riptures intended to con-
vince us of the exceeding shortness of
nur feeting lives.
i have now spoken to you of mans
ignorance of the future and of the un-
crtainty of human life. There are
SINE suggestions from these thoughts.
| We are reminded here of the great need
olUdtciOuS economy IN the use Of time.
El9 Apostle exhOrts us to live, redeem
lnG the time. Because time is precious,
an, in danger of being lost, we are ex-
holed to live, redeeming the time.
Hor may we redeem it? By putting
1T tCthe best use; by feeling the value
of It by filling all the days, hours and
mInlSes with earnestness in character
makilg. and with usefulness in the ser
vice d God and humanity. How many
men and women live as if time was
supe1Hbundant, as if they were just
doodet with enormous stretches of
time, br which they have no use9
How tey waste it, how recklessly
they sqlander it, LOOk at a young
man wER Inherits an enormous fortune,
OF which perhaps he has not earned a
penny. He thinks his wealth is bound
less and (bottomless, and supposes 1t
will last a thousand lifetimes. He goes
on recklessly and finally closes his life
a pauper. Many become moral bank
rupts because they donOt know the
value of time. They feel that they
have such vast supefluity of it that
they waste it, they sqRnder it wick,
edly and the result isthey sink into
moral bankruptcy andnauperism
Let us live redeemin the time, for
we are ignorant of the future, and life
is brief and vanishing. I'VE need to re
deem the time most cs'efully. Then
we should exercise jlCdhiOlLS restraint
on oar 1cOrdty tende1lcie eGnd passions
Now l do not say thatwe should not
enjoy the useful thingSof civilization
or that we should be lilR some Of the
ancient philosophers wto had no re-
gard for the comforts AM decencies of
life But [ do mean tha inasmuch as
We have only life co iivd inasntu3h as
that cannot be a very tng One mas
much as it may be a Hry brief one
with many of us and ma soon termi
nate with any of u.s. it isvastly impOr-
tant that we should not dEOte it entire
ly to worldly and perishirg things We
should feel that having BIT one life we
ought to make the best pssib e use of
it. You can usually forh an idea of
the length Of voyage by the amount
of provisions that are putin board the
ship. If they lay in a largs supply of
food you may suppose thatshey expect
a very long voyage, but i1they lay in
only small supply you nay suppose
| that they anticipate a shirt voyage.
When a ship goes into thePOlar Seas
to battle for long dreary years with
the everlasting lcebergs, 1t usually
takes as much provisions as it can
safely carry. But q ship on a short
voyage does not take so muSh. Do we
not see men starting on thevOyage of
life as if it were to be as lng as eter-
nity2 And do not some of hes9 men
strive to make provision for Thousand
such lives as we live here? That is a
great mistake Life is not ping to be
long. 1t is all right for us 70 provide
comforts enough to last us through the
voyage. But let us remelber that
there is something better p live for
than the very best that perisiing earth
can give. Yes, Christ taught us how
to live when he said, "Sees We first
the kingdom of God and His ighteous-
ness, and all these things shall be
added unto you" In the sane cOnnec-
tiOn he said "take no though for the
morrow. Upon a wrong Interpretation
of these words men build falsetheories.
Our Lord did not mean that We should
be entirely Indifferent to the future and
did not say it. 1t is safe tcsay that
his words are not very we'll rendered.
What he really said was, be not
anxious for the morrow" 10 not re-
gard tomorrow with a Cankeing, con
Stunning, drawing anxiety. Be not
anxious about it, but use the present
the best you can, and in this way be
prepared for tomorrow.
My friends today is the mother of
tomorrow, and tomorrow will be the
daughter of to day. And the lest way
to obtain the favor of the daughter iS
to honor the mother. The trouble with
many of us is that we have too many
to-morrows and not enough to-days.
We are constantly transferring the
obligations and duties of to day to to-
morrow. The work Of to-day is too
often deferred till tomorrow. Let us
have more to days and fewer to-mor-
rows, and life will be nobler, richer,
and higher than it is.
This afternoon we gather around the
cofined remains of a brother who not
long ago was with us in the flesh, but