Orange County observer. [volume] (Hillsborough, N.C.) 1880-1918, 1904-06-02
VALUE OF A DAY
Our REGULAR SUNDAY SERMON
It Should Be Our Purpose to Utilize
Every n0ment Of Time God Has So
0raci0usly Given Us.

- A'ssVssAss ~ OuA PVDO ~ OtI1BZS
Every noment of Time God Has So
draciously Given Us.
New York CITY-A sermon preached
sunday evening by the Rev. DIR. Donald
Sage MacKay. in Collegiate Church, Fifth
avenue and Forty-eighth street, had for
its subject The Value of Day The
twelve hours in the day?' DR.. MacKay
said:
My text this evening is Christ's defni-
ton OF day; Are there not twelve hours
This much at least: The day is a great deal
It IS indeed one Of the dreariest, as it is
one of the oldest Of moral reflections,
which forever dwells upon the shortness
! OF time and the swiftness of its fight.
More mournful eloquence and doleful
poetry have been inspired by that one
theme than by any other in the catalogue
] short, and it's fight is swift, but are there
not twelve hours in Che day? To each
man sufficient time has been given to do
the task assigned to him. That is the SOL
emn practical truth emphasized by our
Saviour here, and it is one that perhaps
Of time, but it's sufficiency for the tasks of
life. Are there not twelve hours in the
| day? That is our subject, the value of a
day, abundance of time to do the duties
which must be done, to bear the burdens
which must be borne, to face the trials
which God sends
At the outset I want to see how these
words of Christ rebuke two very opposite,
but very common, tempers which men as.
sumo in regard to time and it's opportuni-
ties. On the one hand, Christ rebukes
here that morbid spirit which in hopeless
impotence is forever bewailing the short
ness Of time, its loss of opportunities in the
the present. 20, if had only done so and
so twenty years ago, how much better off |
had been to- oay," one man exclaims, and
he sits down in sort of sentimental fatal
ism, bewailing his unhappy lot, making no
real effort to better it. To such man
Christ says in effect, Never mind the past;
it is gone; you cannot recall it; but are
there not twelve hours in the day? Do the
best you can with this day and its precious
hours" Vain regrets for the past are the
worst kind Of dissipation Of the present.
But, on the other hand, these words not
less strongly rebuke that opposite spirit,
which, because llfe seems to stretch through
a long vista of seventy or eighty years, is
prodigal of its time, thinks that the duties
of the present can well enough be mort
gagged on the opportunities of the future.
"What uoes it matter, after all, if young
man squanders a few years in sowing his
wild oats? Nature is generous. You can
mis-spent time-well, it won't matter twen-
ty years after this" So in effect many
men argue. So they stake life and immor-
tality on the chances OF the future. And
to that temper Christ IRIS says; 8; Are there % not
Steal ten Of them for sin to-day and you
cannot give twenty-five Of them for God
tomorrow. Only twelve hours! Sufficient
to do hfe's duties in, but not sufficient to
serve God and the devil in. Twelve hours!
Abundance of time, but not moment too
much, not a second too many.
care there not twelve hours in the day?''
It was Jesus Christ who asked that ques-
ton. Have you never been struck with
what I must call the frugality of Christ,
not only in respect of time, but of every
thing else? Christ was pre-eminently a
frugal man, not prodigal with His re-
He had the riches of the universe in His
grasp. No millionaire that ever lived
could command such resources; and yet
when out of these resources He had fed a
multitude of 5000 people, what was it He
said to His disciples? 'Gather up the frag
: ious for the crumbs. Frugal, not parsimo-
nious, He realized the value Of the little
things in life.
So, too, in this m tier of time. From
everlasting to everlasting He is God. "Be
, fore Abraham was, I am" the heir of al
the ages. And yet He counts life by its
hours, twelve hours in the day, while we
the frail, helpless children of day, pre-
sumo to measure life by its years. How
old are you? And the young man in the
| exuberance of his vitality counts life by it,
years, and replies: Twenty, thirty years
old "How old art thou?" said Pharaoh
to the aged Jacob. And the patriarch
though le was ls7 years old at the time
counted his life by its days, and Jacot
4 said unto Pharaoh: 'SFew and evil have tn,
!. days of tae years of my pilgrimage been.
It was by its days that the old man reck
$ oned life.
e Have you ever noticed how much NOR
keenly this sense of the value of a day i
forced home upon us the nearer we COM
q to eternity? It is when the soul stand
t upon the shore of a boundless eternlt.
that it begins to think of how much day
an hour, moment means. "A million Q
J, money. for an inch of time," cried the grea
t English queen, after six long years
throne. A million Of money for an inch G
timei The nearer we get to eternity tn
:. ! more precious the moments become. An
q Christ, who lived in the atmosphere c
eternity and who alone hath Immortality
counted life by it's hours, twelve hours i
e the day-enough, but not enough and
spare.
phasize especially the spiritual aspect
d this subject, and yet it cannot be out {
), place altogether to remember that tn
. power of using the hours of a day an
gathering up these precious fragments
a time, frequently called <'odd moments"
= really the secret of some of the most SUI
Il cessful lives. One of the striking TESTING
e malls Of biography. indeed, is this that
great, many. enduring regulations in tt
world have been built out of the ''odG M
q ments'' of life. Men otherwise long s;..t
e | forgotten are remembered to-day for whs
IS they achieved in odd moment,> in tt
" twelve hours Of the day. One of the. be.
translations of Lucretius, the great Lat
h writer, was the work of b':sy Londo
y doctor while going his daily round amor
= his patients: A great musician learne
u French and Italian while riding from OF
musical pupil to another. Kirke Whi
J. learned Greek while walking to and fro
\ a lawyers Office, SO that he was enabled
s graduate with honors in the universit
b One of the ablest legal treatises in ii
French language was written by man