The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1904-07-01
A SERMON FOR SUNDAY
AN INTERESTING DISCOURSE BY THE
REV. DONALD SAGE MAcKAY.
Subject: "The Value of Day" - We
Should Not Waste Effort in Talking
PIatitudes About the Shortness of
Time-Let us BE Up and Doing.


PIatitudes About the shortness of
Time-Let us BE Up and Doing.
NEW York C1TY.-A sermon preached
Sunday evening by the Rev. DR.. Donald
Sage MacKay in Collegiate Church. Fifth
avenue and Forty-eighth street, had tor
its subject "The Value of a Day The
text was from John xi:9 care there not
twelve hours in the day." DR.. Machay
said
My text this evening is Christ's defni-
ton OF a day: care there not twelve hours
in the day." And what of it? you ask:
This much at least: The day is great deal
longer than some people seem to imagine.
1t 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 Hight;
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, time is
short and it's fight is swift, bat are there
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 suffcency for the tasks of
life. Are there rot twelve hours in the
day? That is our subject, the value of
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 | want to see how these
words CT Christ rebul1e two very opposite,
but very common, tempers which men as.
sumo in regard to time and its 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
past and its srNallness of opportunities III
the present. 60 if | 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 1T. To such a 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 life seems to stretch through
long vista of seventy or eighty years, is
prodigaI 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 young
man squanders 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-
tally on the chances of the future, And
to that temper Christ says: care there not
twelve hours in the day." Only twe!ve!
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 LIES duties in, but not sufficient to
serve God and the devil in. Twelve hours!
Abundance of time, but not a moment too
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 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
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 day, pre-
sumo to measure life by its years. How
old are you? And the young man in the
haraOca nf his vitality on,,p 70 1ifa hxy 1to
years, and replies: Twenty, thirty years
Old 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, md 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
Moses: $50 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 come
to eternity! 1t is when the soul stands
upon the shore of boundless eternity
that it begins to think of how much day,
an hour, 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
eternity and who alone hath immortality,
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 day and |
gathering up these precious fragments of |
time, frequently called 'odd moments" is
really the secret of some of the most sue
,essful lives. One of the striking testmo-
malls of hnoranhv indeed is this tint a |