The evening twilight and the glorious dawning

Front matter

HIBRARY OF CONGRESS.

ii'"p i^wti

0!

CHAPTER I. LIFE'S EYEisrma twilight

The close of the day is prefigurative of the close of life. The two are intimately assimilated, instructive and impressive. The hour of evening twilight is full of pathos and power. It suggests reflections of a pensive character, and disposes to solitude. — Isaac went out into the fields at eventide to meditate. The general placidity that then prevails is favorable to abstraction. All is hushed, as if Nature were slumbering. The angry winds have ceased to blow. Not a leaf trembles in the breeze. Not a wavelet disturbs the smooth surface of the lake. The din of the tumultuous city is silenced, and the toil-worn laborer hies himself home. The sun, dipping below the horizon, and tinging the clouds with a golden purple, has just performed a course of beneficence and utility^ and breathes with his departing beams a diffusive air of blessedness and repose. The setting orb marshals us on the way we ought to go, and tells us that, having passed the fervor and vigor of our existence — the morning and noon of our appointed pilgrimage — the evening of our life should set in mild and genererous quietude at its close ; with every earthly ardor softened, and with the loveliest hues of heaven mingling in its farewell light. The scene instinctively points us to the bright realms of another world ; and as we follow the receding luminary, in thought and imagination, into the regions of interminable splendor, we think of the scenery of the heavenly country, the happiness of spirits glorified, the mansions of everlasting rest, the seats of enduring delight. We feel that God has prepared for us, in the brightness of His presence, unutterable joys ; so far excelling all created good as the effulgence of the setting sun exceeds the glimmer of a distant star.

The hours of life's little day seem to fly more swiftly after we pass the meridian.

" The more we live, more brief appears Our life's succeeding stages."

The revolution of the seasons occurs with accelerated speed. The golden visions of youth, fade and become dim. The sun's rays strike us horizontally. The shades of evening deepen. The broad space, and the brighter prospects are compressed into a narrow compass, and the horizon shuts down around us till its diameter seems only the length and breadth of the grave. The aged pilgrim, standing in the evening twilight, is rarely anxious to endure the heat and burden of the day afresh. His spirit, mellowed and chastened, longs for the wings of a dove to fly away and be at rest. His palate is tasteless to the world's sweets. His eyes are dim to the world's glare. His ears are deaf to the music of earth. His treasure is in heaven, and he prefers to depart and be with Christ, which is far better.

The evening brings with it decrepitude and infirmity. When David said to Barzillai, come and live with me at the palace, Barzillai answered : ^^ I am this day four-score years old ; and can I discern between good and evil ? Can thy servant taste what I eat or what I drink ? Can I hear any more the voice of singing men and singing women ? Let thy servant, I pray thee, turn back that I may die in my own city, to be buried by the grave of my father and of my mother."

The desire to die at home, and be interred in the family vault, is generally all of earthly preference that now remains. The pleasures of expectation have ceased ; there is nothing to hope for. " The clouds return after the rain. The keepers of the house tremble. The strong men bow themselves.'' The active limbs are feeble. That other disciple, who outran Peter, can no longer creep from his couch ; any one can bind him, and carry him whither he would not. " The grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened.^' The eyes are dim. The landscape is blurred. The world is misty ; the doors are shut in the streets. The avenues of audience and utterance are closed. Soft sounds can no longer be enjoyed. Whispers of affection are not heard. There is terror in that which is high, ^^ and fears are in the way.^' The mountainside is formidable. The grasshopper is a burden, and desire fails. The frail nature we inherit is encompassed with a cloud of infirmities, which develop themselves the more painfully, as the sands of life are running out.

We read in one of the Gospels of a certain woman who had been healed of a spirit of infirmity. Her spinal cord was contracted, and she was bowed down, and could in no wise lift up herself. St. Matthew informs us that ^^ when even was come/' the people of Capernaum brought unto Jesus many that were possessed with devils, and He cast out the spirits with His word, and healed all that were sick. The Lord selected the hour of evening twilight as an appropriate occasion for the display of His benevolence and power. How holy and precious the instruction ! Is it the twilight of life with you, on whose behalf we would implore the compassion and help of the Saviour ? Is the sun of your existence now receding into the deep shades of night ? Do you utter the plaintive cry: ''Woe unto us, for the day goeth away, for the shadows of evening are stretched out ?'' Hope in God, for you shall yet praise Him for the health of His countenance. '' At evening time it shall be light." Bring afresh the objects of your solicitude in faith and love to Jesus, and " your light shall rise in obscurity, and your darkness be as the noonday." The soul has its infirmities as well as the body. The constitutional peculiarities are of many colors. The temperament of some is naturally warm, excitable and impetuous ; the feelings ardent and impulsive ; the affections fervent, and sensibilities strong : the temperament of others is cold, phlegmatic and immovable, having but little of the emotional, and requiring an overwhelming calamity to arouse them to ft^eling. Some men are accustomed to view every subject through a medium of depression and gloom. They never look upon the bright and cheerful tints of life's landscape, but love to ruminate upon its dark and sombre lines, and dwell with morbid pleasure on the unpromising and hopeless. Others are so sanguine that they live in a world of illusion and romance : they leap to conclusions without adequate premises ; they assume facts without proper data ; they are credulous, unsuspecting and confiding, and take for granted what should only be accepted on demonstration. Now all these are so many infirmities — plague-spots on the character, which we should deeply deplore. It is an infirmity to be too enthusiastic ; to be too cold ; to be too confiding ; to be too suspicious ; to be too fascinated with the. sunn\, golden and mellow tints of the picture, and equally so to be mentally absorbed and depressed with its shaded and gloomy coloring. ^^ This is my infirmity,^^ may be said of each.

Solomon assigns the manifold infirmities of old age as a cogent reason for embracing and exemplifying religion in eaily life. ^^ Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them/' Those who pass youth and manhood irreligiously are almost sure to find the evening twilight come joylessly. The last years of an ungodly man are a Terra del Fuego, where the weather never clears, but is one constant drizzle. The cup of his earthly happiness, which was full to the brim, has leaked out all its contents. The world has proved itself to be a broken cistern. The warm sun-beams no longer cheer his pathway. The windows are darkened, and the street-doors closed ; and he feels dulness and deadness, sickness and sadness, languor and stupor pervading him. The effort to win his attention to the claims of his Creator now is like discoursing on important themes to a sleepy subject. He replies : Every thing fatigues me ; desire fails, my heart is weary, my soul is heavy ; leave me' to repose. Give the Sayiouk your heart, dear reader, while you have a heart to give. Tender Him your warmest affections before they grow dry and arid. Yield to the sweet accents of His soothing voice, as He speaks through your mother, the Church.

" Now in thy youth beseech of Him, Who giveth, upbraideth not,

That His light in thy heart become not dim,

And His love be unforgot.

And thy God, in thy darkest days, will be Greenness and beauty and strength to thee, And the cross, which was stained with blood for thee, Secure to thy faith the victory."

Godliness in youth is like the sun rising on a fine summer morning, to shine through a long, bright day : while religion in old age is like the evening star that appears as the day is closing. One of the poets of the last century has a poem entitled : " Strife in Heaven.'^ It represents the company of the redeemed, discussing with perfect good feeling the question, Which of them was most indebted to the grace of God for his salvation. There were two among the number that appeared to have claims for the greatest weight of obligation so nearly balanced as to render it difficult to decide which owed the most. One was a glorified spirit, converted in old age ; the other had been pious from his youth, and spent a long life in the service of God. The former contended that his forgiveness, after a protracted course of rebellion, made him the most signal monument of God's saving

mercy Except myself, added the other, who was

prevented by God's grace from falling into the vortex of iniquity, and enabled to consecrate my life to God's service and glory. There is no doubt that the happy throng declared the justice of the younger seraph's claim, and decided that they owe most to God's mercy, who are disposed to give Him their hearts in the morning of life.

There is nothing we need to learn or feel more profoundly, than that the morning is the index of the evening that follows. If the moral mists and fogs are not scattered from the mind before noon, the whole day is usually cloudy. The impressions acquired in early life invariably strike the deepest and last the longest. The present moment is, therefore, the intensest period of your existence. The passing hour may be the point on which your eternity will revolve. " Seek the Lord while He may be found ; call upon Him while He is near." "Acquaint now thyself with Him and be at peace, and then good shall come unto thee." The young men of the world will be seen a few years hence, each leaning on his staif for very feebleness. But " they that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength." Clouds and darkness may overshadow them ; but they have sunny seasons, and beyond this stormy region blessed prospects. The more rapidly they are clothed with the snows of age, the sooner they will renew their youth in the realms of immortality. Sir Walter Scott says : ^^How different is every thing in the latter stages. There is some new subject of complaint every moment. Sickness comes thicker and thicker, and sympathizing friends fewer and fewer. Death has closed the long dark avenue upon loves and friendships, and I look at them as through the grated door of a burial-place, filled with monuments of those who were once dear to me, with no insincere wish that it may open to me at no distant period, provided it be the will of God. I shall never see the three-score and ten, and shall be summed up at a discount. No help for it, and no matter.^' The sainted Wilberforce, who was contemporary with the celebrated novelist, expressed surprize, as he reached the evening of his useful career, that his life had been spared so long ; and then soon after, when his only surviving daughter died, he wrote : ^' I have often heard that sailors on a voyage will drink : ' Friends a-stern,' until they are halfway over : then, ^Friends a-head.' With mo it has been ' Friends a-head,' this long time.''

Chapter II. Present Duty And Futuee Peospeots

It is only when men feel deeply that they act with energy. The mere calm contemplation of an object avails but little in calling forth the energies of the soul to secure its accomplishment. The object must first of all have a strong hold upon the heart. It must break up the deep fountains of feeling^ and bring the mind under the influence of high and powerful excitements. Animated by such an influence^ men have gone forth to the successful prosecution of enterprises^ the difficulty and danger of which^ under other circumstances^ whould have caused every eff'ort to look like childish folly and presumption. Though this feeling of our nature has been perverted by depravity, yet in itself the feature is God-like. Its prototype is found beautifully in Him, Who is the perfection of excellence. Incarnate love enthroned now holds the sceptre of universal dominion ; and, with an eye that never sleeps, and with an arm that never wearies, is engaged in carrying forward to their consummation the purposes of infinite benevolence.

The same affection, so characteistic of Deity, He has made the brightest ornaments of the Christian character, as well as the impulsive motive to every duty required of us as His followers. We have some happy illustrations of its efficacy in the lives of the Apostles and primitive Christians. Borne aloft by the Saviour's love, they counted not their lives dear to them, so that they might finish their course with joy. The adversaries of Christianity construed their zeal into fanaticism, and their fervor into a monomania ; but, as a justification of their procedure, they replied : " Whether we be beside ourselves it is to God, or whether we be sober it is for your cause ; for the love of Christ constraineth us.''

St. Jude, in his epistle, commands us : " Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, unto eternal life."

The first part of this Apostolic injunction regards our present experience, '^ Keep yours'elves in the love of God. Whether the allusion of the Apostle is to God's love to us, or our love to Him, is unimportant. The means employed to pr(3mote the one will secure the other. The advice presupposes the

PKESENT DUTY AND FUTURE PROSPECTS. 19

outgoing of this affection from our own hearts, and that we aim to promote its increase by constant communion with its object at the throne of grace. To keep alive so sacred a flame, amid the host of unfriendly influences that combine to quench it, is an arduous task. But as it is preserved vigorous and glowing, self-sacrificing and abiding, the other graces of the Christian character thrive in equal proportion. The love of God is the same to the mind in judging of right and wrong, truth and error, that a delicate ear for music is to harmony, or the possession of the requisite qualifications of speech to our speaking and acting with propriety. It is thus represented by the Apostle in his epistle to the Philippians : " And this I pray, that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and in all judgment, that ye may approve things that are excellent'' ; (or rather, that ye may try things that differ). This is the life-blood that flows through all the veins of genuine Christianity. The heart can be subject to no influence richer in the purest enjoyment. Its tendency is to mould, insensibly, the character to the image of the object loved. Beholding, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, by the Spirit of the Lord. The conformity, as

20 TWILIGHT AND DAWNIIsG.

far as it prevails, makes us one with Christ, identifying our interest with His interest, and our glory with His glory. It elevates our thoughts and wishes above the current of this world's attraction, and associates us with the destinies of eternity.

When we love inanimate objects we are conscious of no such influence exerted on the mind. We may love a garden of flowers, a murmuring stream, a sunny bank, a humble cottage peeping forth from concealment. We may love a splendid landscape, teeming with varied grasses, and be able to say of it : This is the prospect over which my eye and imagination are fond of expatiating. But the inanimate never reflect back again the love we bestow on them. They remain motionless, without will, and without sensibility ; and are loved purely on account of their loveliness. There is no mixture of selfishness in their composition. They do not put on a sweeter smile to one person than to another, but the several features of beauty in which they are arrayed stand inflexibly the same to every beholder. With our fellow-men, who are the objects of our affection, the case is different. If we love them for their compassion or benevolence, we generally find that it meets with a warm reciprocation, and is returned with interest into our own bosom. Yet the ever-loving and adorable Jehovah loved us when we were most unworthy ; when we had not a single quality to elicit it ; when we were enemies to Him by wicked works^ and had wandered far along the paths of alienation and death. He loved us with a love of kindness and commiseration that devised a remedy to save us. Such love of tenderness on His part very naturally and properly calls for the love of gratitude on ours. He has done what is pleasing and gratifying to us. What shall we do to please and gratify Him ? The answer is definite, the injunction is entire : " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength." But for this direct and positive announcement, we should be continually in danger of compromising our Maker — planning and scheming how little we may love Him, and how much we may venture to withhold from Him, without forfeiting our safety. The measure of affection is elsewhere explicitly defined by one emphatic word employed by Christ — more than Me : '' Whoso loveth father or mother, brother or sister, wife or children, more than me, is not worthy of me.'' The religion which He inculcates distinctly recognizes the existence of human relations, and seeks to strengthen and intensify^ by purifying, elevating and immortalizing them. All these ties of attachment — the parentalj the conjugal, the filial — are to have full- play in linking heart to heart ; but ever to be maintained in profound subordination to Himself, and to be so sanctified and employed as to become auxiliaries and aids to the higher and purer affections of supreme attachment to the Saviour. We must see to it that we enjoy the creatures in Him, and glorify Him in the creature.

The honor thus claimed for Christ can be shown, directly or indirectly, in your avocations, whether it be in the counting-room or in the mart of trade. The integrity with which you discharge your commercial obligations is an acceptable service. The father of a family may not be always thinking of his children^ but he gives the most unequivocal evidence of his affection for them by his assiduity to meet their necessities. So the love of God in the heart must be equally an abiding motive ; not a fancy nor a sentiment — nor an evanescent emotion ; but a principle, calm, steady, undecaying, enduring, progressive.

It was once a problem in mechanics to fina a pendulum which should be equally long in all weathers,

SO as to make the same number of vibrations in the summer's heat and in the winter's cold. This is now accomplished by a process of compensation, which makes the rod lengthen one way as much as it contracts the other ; the centre of the motion being always the same. The pendulum swings the same number of beats in January and in June ; and the index travels over the dial-plate with the same uniformity, whether the heat try to lengthen, or the cold to shorten the propelling power.

The lesson we wish to draw from this is an illustration of principle, unaffected by surrounding circumstances ; principle like the compensation rod, which neither lengthens in the languid heat, nor shortens in the brisker cold ; but does the same work day after day, whether the ice winds whistle or the simoon glows. Of all principles, the high principled affection for God is the steadiest and the surest. Other incentives to action may falter at the time we need them. The smile of our friends was wont to be our recompense for the attentions we showed them. But many of them have gone where neither our industry can enrich them, nor our kindness comfort them. Some few that remain are not what they once were. The magic light has faded from their countenances.

The mysterious interest that hovered over them has gone up like a mountain mist^ and left them in their wintry coldness or natural ruggedness. They are certainly no longer the persons we took them to be. But Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day and forever. He is unchangeable in all vicissitudes ; and therefore intense, unconquerable love to Him is equally an abiding motive that may never lose its power, till reason has lost its seat. Christ is our life, and our growth in spiritual life is Christ increasing within us. Every day's history ought to bring out new aspects of His loveliness, and discover reasons why we should love Him more now than we ever loved Him before.

When the people were probing among the shattered ribs of a certain chieftain for the fatal bullet that laid him low, a French veteran exclaimed : "A little deeper, and you will find the Emperor.'' So the deepest affection in the heart is the supremacy of love to Christ. Deeper than the love of home, deeper than the love of kindred, deeper than the love of country, deeper than the love of life, is this love of Christ. If other spells have lost their charms ; if other names of fond endearment cease to interest ; if other loves no longer constrain., and other persuasives have no power^ there is that in ardent love to the Saviour which makes the timid bold^ the stammering eloqnent, and the slothful diligent. There is a real heartedness about it which refuses to let a much loved Saviour go^ even when the palsied arm of affection is no longer conscious of the benignant form which it embraces. It holds on true to its object, amid outward and inward desolation. It is the same when the glassy eye has forgotten to sparkle, and the joyous heart can no longer mantle on the withered cheek. This was the love which made Paul and Silas, famished as they were, sing praises to God at midnight, in the dreary prison. This was the love which burned in the Apostle's breast, when buffeting the Adriatic's wintry brine ; and which made the work awaiting him at Eome beam like a star of hope through the drowning darkness of this dismal night. This was the love that thawed his pen, when the moan of chilling winds caused him to miss the cloak which he left at Troas. This was the love, which impelled him to write a testamentary entreaty to Timothy, to hold fast the truths that were hastening him to martyrdom. Aim to possess this love in full and vigorous exercise, and you possess the mainspring of success in every laudable enterprise, and exhibit that pervasive spirit, without which the seemliest exertions are an elegant futility. Seek to be eminently GoD-loving and CHRisT-loving disciples : and give all diligence to keep yourselves in the love of God. The tenor of this advice pathetically appeals to you in every circumstance of life.

The weekly recurrence of the Sabbath, with its rest for the body and the mind, its hours of sacred worship, and its richly freighted blessings, is vocal with this godly instruction. The Sunday is an in stitution whose object is to mould us so completely after the mind and will of God, that it seems as if it were a fraction of heaven let down to earth — a handful of. heaven's sunbeams — a magnet dropped from the skies to draw us up to our native regions. It spreads for us, one day in seven, a feast for the soul ; and as it visits, and then leaves us, its message is ever the same : ^' Keep yourselves in the love of God.''

The precepts and promises of the Bible, its warnings and threatenings, its eloquence and poetry are all designed to awe and solemnize us on this great subject.

The dangers that assail us morally, spiritually and physically — the treachery of friends — the insidious manoeuvring of enemies — the frowning aspects of Providence — the blasting of schemes of business — the removal by death of dear and attached friends — all these are so many admonitions to assure us that there is no safety in any condition^ except as we give heed to the counsel : '^ Keep yourselves in the love of God."

Whatever the afflictions we may be called upon to sustain, or the comforts we may be privileged to enjoy — the storms that may beat upon our spirits, or the sunshine that may smile upon our pathway — whatever adversities or success may be assigned us, they knock at our doors with the lessons of caution or encouragement : " Bleep yourselves in the love of God."

The whole history of the past is specially adapted to inculcate, and to keep vividly before the mind so important a subject. It may be that to you it has been a period of prosperity and sunshine. It commenced with inspiring music ; it has been continued in music, and the sweet notes of music still vibrate on your ears. The light of God's countenance and smile upon your exertions made you successful in business, and assigned you an elevated position in the social fabric. The goodness of God, specially vouchsafed, made you fortunate in your plans^ and now whispers^, in soft and touching accents : " Keep yourselves in the love of God/'

It may be that your lot can only be read in chapters of change, loss and bereavement. Dark clouds and deep waters have been your portion. The fair sky which you anticipated has been covered with the blackness of night. The castles, which you built in the air, have been scattered like the baseless fabric of a vision. The dearest and best beloved have been swept from the domestic circle into the dust of the grave. The images of the dead are painfully crowded into the chambers of memory. The faces, which were accustomed to glow around the Christmas fire-side, are fewer than formerly. The happiest home has had some clouds pass over it. The sunniest circle has had shadows flit occasionally across it. Eveiy Christmas song has some melancholy minor moaning through it. And in every condition there is an interchanging of shade and sunshine to make us serious and grateful, and press home upon us the seasonable admonition : " Keep yourselves iu the love of GrOD.''

The injunction regards also our future expectations — ^^ looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life!' The feeling of expectancy exerts a powerful influence on the human mind. Plato affirms : '^ There is more pleasure in the pursuit of an object^ than in the possession of it.^' Applicable as this may be to some things in this present life, it has no meaning in connection with the things of the life to come. We know full well that the man of the world delights himself with a thousand fancied and imaginary joys, seizes the glittering bubble, grasps at a shadow, builds on the sand and leans for support on a bending reed. Often does his heart beat high in hopes ; and expectations are fondly and confidently cherished, which, by some sudden and unforseen calamity, are dashed in a moment to the ground. Wrecks of fair hopes innumerable are seen floating on the sea of human life. Thousands, who set sail with a fair wind and a bright sky, their canvas spread, and their spirits buoyant, hoping soon to reach the port where fortune smiles, have been driven back by storms and tempest, and lost all their joyous prospects in the gloom of darkness and desolation.

In the voyage to the heavenly rest there is no such hazard. Those in quest of eternal life have no such calamity attending them. They have a pilot on board who controls the elements. They have an

Omnipotent Saviour Who has pledged Himself never to leave them ; and they have the promise of an abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom.