The Penn's Grove record., 1904-05-27
A SERMON FOR SUNDAY
AN INTERESTING DISCOURSE BY THE
REV. DONALD SAGE MAcKAY.
Subject: i'The value of d DayD= we
Should Not Waste Effort III Talking
Platitudes About the Shortness of
Time-Let Us Be Up and Doing.

O9
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 a Day. The
text was from John xi;9: care there not
twelve hours in the day?" DR.. MacKay
said:
My text this evening is Christ's defni-
ton OF a day: care there not twelve hours
in the day?" And what Of it2 you ask.
This much at least: The day is d great deal
1t is indeed ono 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 it's fight;
More mournful eloquence and doleful
poetry have. been inspired by that one
theme than by any other in the catalogue
Of human thought. Of course, TING is
not twelve hours in the 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
we hardly ever think of; not the shortness
Of time; but its sifficiency fol-, the tasks of
life. Are there not twelve hours id the
day? That is our. subject, the value, of d
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, it's loss of opportunities in the
past and its smallness of opportunities in
the present. 20, if l had only done SO and
so twenty years ago, how much better off |
had been to-day" one man exclaims, and
he sits down in a sort of sentimental fatal
ism, bewailing his unhappy lot, making no
real effort to better it. To such d man
Christ says in effect, "Never mind the past;
1t 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 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 squanders a few years in sowing his
wild oats? Nature is generous. You can
bank on her resources. A few years of
mis-spent time-well, it won't matter TWEEN
ty years after this" So in effect many
men argue. So they stake life and immor-
tahty on the chances of the future. And
to that temper Christ says: care 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 life's duties in, but not sufficient to
cop1-a Cd oA1 H. lo-.1 - H-11-, ~,-f
Abundance of time, but not a moment toe
much, not a second too many.
Are there not twelve hours in the day."
1t was Jesus Christ who asked that ques-
ton. Have you never been struck with
what ! 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-
sources, not spendthrift with His powers.
He had the riches of the universe in His
grasp. No millionaire that ever lived
could command such resources; and vet
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-
fore Abraham was, | am" the heir of all
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-
old are you? And the young man in the
exuberance of his vitality counts life by its
years, and replies: Twenty, thirty years
DID," How old art thou?" said Pharaoh
to the aged Jacob. And the patriarch,
though lie was 1877 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-
oned life.
So, too, you remember the prayer of
Noses: S 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 day is
forced home upon us the nearer we con
to eternity? 1t is when the soul stands
upon the shore of a boundIess 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 we get to eternity the
more precious the moments become. And
Christ, who lived in the atmosphere of
II ol0 viz Q1OIC udGh lIllIuOELdllIXs
counted life by its hours, twelve hours in
the day-enough, but not enough and to
spare.
| want, of course, this evening to en-
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
O IIy fhn ea0raH ~ 14-o4 e L
cessful lives. One of the striking testimo-
mails 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
twelve hours of the day. One of the best
writer, was the work of 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
a 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
precedes the serving of the evening meal.
after he had come home from his office.
Elhu Burrltt taught himself eighteen an
Gent languages and twenty-five European
Languages while waiting for the horses to
be shod in his blacksmith shop. Such ex-
amples teach US forcibly enough how album
dant are the hours of the day for the no.
blest tasks of life, if we would but seek
grace to use them Alright. "Redeeming the
time" says the apostle. How many of US
ask Gods grace each day we rise, to use
tie twelve hours Alright. for His glory anS
for the benefit of our fellow men,?
Do we realize this privilege of twelve
hours a day sufficiently? I am quite sure
if we did we should not say so often as Je
do that we have no time. We should not
waste SO much time in talking platitudes
about the shortness of time. We should be
up and doing, living life in earnest. and
not in spasms. Yet think how MANY
squander these precious twelve hours day
by day. Think, for example, of the hours
OF idle r%everies. useless, aimless dreaming.
respectable loaing, that many of us give
ourselves up to throughout the day. II Is
not perhaps that our thoughts are vicious
or impure, but simply that our minds qet
into a state of suspended animation. dur.
ing which an uncurbed fancy makes havoc
or our Will power, paralyzes our ENERGY