The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1904-06-15
. SERMON FOR SUNDAY
AN INTERESTING DISCOURSE BY THE
REV. DONALD SAGE MAcKAY.

Iabiect: "The Value of a Day. We
Should Not Waste Effort In Talking
Platitudes About the Shortness OF
Time-Let Us Be UP and Doing.
New YORK C1TY.-A sermon preached
Sunday evening by the Rev. Dr.. Donaid
Sage MacKay. in Collegiate Church, Filth
avenue and Forty-eighth street, had Tor
it's subject "The Value of a Day Inc
! text was from John xi:9; Are there not
| twelve hours in the day." DR.. Mackay
said: .
My text this evening is Christ's defni-
ton of a day: Are there not twelve hours
in the day% And what of it? you ask;
This much at least: The day is a great deal
longer than some people seem to imagine.
It IS indeed one Of the dreariest, as 1t ls
one of the oldest of moral reflections,
which forever dwells upon the shortness
Of time and the swiftness of its hight;
More mournful eloquence and doleful
theme than by any other in the catalogue
Of human thought. OF course, time is
short, and it's flight is swift. but are there
not twelve hours in the day? To each
man sufficient time has been given to 40
the task assigned to him. That is the SOL
emp practical truth emphasized by our
Saviour here, and it is one that perhaps
we hardly ever think of; not the shortness
of time, but its suficiency for the tasks OF
life. Are there not twelve hours IN she
day? That is our subject, the value OF a
day, abundance of time to 90 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 ard its opportqni-
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 III the
bast and it's smallness OF opportunities IN
the present. 80, if I had only done so and
so twenty years ago, how much better on l
had been to-day" one man eXclalms, ana
he sits down in q sort of sentimental fatal
ism, bewailing his unhappy lot, making no
real effort to better it. 10 such a man
Christ says in effect, Never mind the past;
it is gone; you cannot recall 1t; 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 life 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 Goes it matter, after all, If a young
man s%quanders a few years in sowing MS
wild oats? Nature is generous. You can
bank on her resources. A few years of
- s-o~E &:-ao wall ~ rron'f nnttQp fwpn-
ty wears after this" So in effect many
men argue. So they stake life and immor:
tally on the chances of the future. And
to that temper Christ says: Are there not
twelve hours in the day" Only twelve!
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 ife's duties in, but not sufficient 10
serve God and the devil in. Twelve hours!
Abundance of time, but not a moment too
much, not a second too many. .
care there not twelve hours in the day."
1t was Jesus Christ who asked that ques-
ton. Have you never been struck with
what l must call the frugality of Christ,
thing else? Christ was Ere-eminently a
frugal man, not prodigal with His re-
sources, not s%pendthrift with His powers.
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-
ments, that nothing be lost" He was anx-
ious for the crumbs. Frugal, not parsimo-
NOUS, 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,
the ages. And yet He counts life by its
hours, twelve hours in the day, while we,
the frail, helpless children of a day, pre-
sumo to measure life by its years. How
old are you? And the young man in the
exuberancc of his vitality counts life by its
years, and replies: Twenty, thirty years
old" "How old art thou" said Pharaoh
to the aged Jacob. And the patriarch,
though lie was l37 years old at the time,
counted his life by its days, and Jacob
said unto Pharaoh: Few and evil have the
days of the years of my pilgrimage BEEN"
1t was by its days that the old man reck-
oncd life.
So, too, you remember the prayer of
Moses: 80 teach us to number" not our
years, but "our days, that we may apply
our hearts unto wisdom"
Have you ever noticed how much more
keenly this sense of the value of a Gay is
forced home upon us the nearer we come
to eternity? 1t is when the soul stands
upon the shore of a bourdless eternity
that it begins to think of how much a day,
an hour, u moment means. "A million of
money for an inch of time" cried the great
English queen, after six long years on a
throne. A million Of money for an inch of
time! The nearer re get to eternity the
more precious the moments become. And
Christ, who lived in the atmosphere of
eternity and who alone hath Immortality,
counted life by its hours, twelve hours in
the day-enough, but not enough and to
spare.
phasize especially the spiritual aspect Of
this subject, and yet it cannot be out of
place altogether to remember that this
power of using the hours of a day and
gathering up these precious fragments of
time, frequently called odd moments" is
really the secret Of some of the most sue
cessful lives. One of the striking testimo-
malls of biography. indeed, is this. that a
great many enduring regulations in the
world have been built out of the odd mo-
ments" Of life. Men otherwise long since
forgotten are remembered to-day for what
they achieved in odd moments, in the
TRANSACTIONS of Lucretius. the great Latin
writer, was the work C a busy London
doctor while going his daily round among
his patients. A great musician learned
French and Italian while riding from one
musical pupil to another. Kirke White
learned Greek while walking TO and from
q lawyers Office. so that he was enabled to
graduate with honors in the university.
One of the ablest legal t~reatises in the
French language was written by a man in
the somewhat depressing interval which