The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1893-01-07
shall have any excuse for not being pre-
pared to meet him."

pared to meet him.
Voltaire, the blatant infdel, appreci-
ated the value of time when In his dy-
ing moments he said to his doctor, 81
will give you half Of what I am worth it
you will give me six months of life, and
when told that he could not live SIX
weeks he burst into tears and said,
Then shall go to hell" John Wesley
appreciated the value of time when he
stood on his steps waiting for a delayed
carriage to take him to an appointment,
saying, II have lost ten minutes forever.
Lord Nelson appreciated the value OF
time when he said, II owe everything in
the world to being always 8 quarter Of
an hour beforehand.
A clockmaker in one of the old Eng
fish towns appreciated the value of time
when he put on the front of the town
clock the words, "Now or when?' Mitch
ell, the astronomer, appreciated thevalue
Of time when he said, 81 have been In
the habit Of calculating the value Of
thousandth part of q second" That min
lister of the Gospel did not appreciate the
value of time who during a season of
illness, instead Of employing his time in
useful reading or writing wrote silly
religious romance, which in some I'M
known way came into the possession of
the famous Joe Smith, who introduced
the book as divine revelation, which
became the foundation Of Mormonism,
the most beastly abomination of all time.
They best appreciate the value of time
x,1I,n Co hot he L, or and
whose opportunities of repentance and
usefulness are all agone, and who have
nothing left but memories, baleful and
elegiac. They stand in the bleak Sep
TENDER, with bare feet, on the sharp
stubble of reaped wheat field, crying,
1.-THE harvest is past!1 And the sough Of
an autumnal equinox means forth in
echo, 1.-THE harvest is past"
THE LAST OF ALL.
But do not let us get an impression
from chronology that because the years
of time have been so long in procession
they are to go on forever. Matter is not
eternal No, no! If you watch half
day, or whole day, or two days, as
once did, to see military procession.
you remember the last brigade, and the
lastregiment. and the last company final
ly passed on, and as we rose to go we
said to each other, st is all over"
So this mighty procession OF earthly
years will terminate. Just when have
no power to prognosticate, but science
confirms the Bible prophecy that the
earth cannot always last. Indeed there
mas been a fatality of worlds. The moon
is merely the corpse of what it once was,
and scientists have again and again gone
up in their observatories to attend the
deathbed of dying worlds and have seen
them cremated. So am certain, both
from the Word of God and science, that
the worlds chronology will sooner or
later come to its last chapter.
The final century will arrive and pass
on, and then will come the final decade
and then the final year, and the fina4
month, and the final day. The last spring
will swing it's censor of apple blossoms
and the last winter bank its SHOWS. The
last sunset will burn like Moscow md
the last morning radiate the hills. The
clocks will strike their last hour, and the
watches will tick their last second. No
incendiaries will be needed to run hither
and yon with torches to set the world
on fire.
Chemistry teaches us that there is a
very infammable element in water
While oxygen makes up a part of the
water, the other part of the water is by
drogen, and that is very combustible.
The oxygen drawn out from the water, the
inflammable hydrogen will put instantly
into confagration the Hudsons and Sd
vannahs and Mississippis and Rhines and
Urals and Danubes, and Atlantic and
Pacific and Indian and Mediterranean
seas. And then the angel of God, de-
scending from the throne, might put one
foot on the surf of the sea and the other
ON the beach and cry to the four winds
of heaven, Time was, but time shall be
no longerl' Yet, found in Christ, par
doned and sanctifed, we shall welcome
the day with more gladness than you
ever welcomed a Christmas or New
Years morn.
When wrapt in fire the realms of ether glow
And heavens last thunder shakes the earth be-
low,
Thou, undismayed shalt DER the ruin smile
And light thy torch at natures funeral pile