^ The third chapter of Dr. Hanna's Memoir describes Dr. Chalmers' ordination to his Fifeshire parish of Kilmany, in the May time of 1803 ; but we have to journey on to the eighth chapter and the winter of 1811, before the preacher has any Gospel to pro- claim. Through the intervening years Chalmers was more interested in mathematics than in the New Testament, and in his lectures to the students of St. Andrews on chemistry and geology than in the spiritual welfare of his people. " The author of this pamphlet," he wrote in self-defence, " can assert, on the authority of his own experience, that, after the satisfactory discharge of his parish duties, a minister may enjoy five days in the week of un- interrupted leisure for the prosecution of any science in which his taste may dispose him to engage." Years afterwards, in a debate in the Assembly of 1825, he recanted the words and con- fessed his error amid the deathlike stillness of the House. " I have no reserve in saying that the sentiment was wrong, and that, in the utterance of it, I penned what was most outrageously wrong. Strangely blinded that I was ! What, sir, is the object of mathematical science ? Magnitude, and the proportions of magnitude. But then, sir, I had forgotten two magnitudes. I thought not of the littleness of time ; I recklessly thought not of the greatness of eternity." ^
3. The end of life is not to live the maximum number of hours in pleasure, but to form a character for all eternity ; and if we want to take stock of loss and gain aright, we must look into our own hearts. We must see what treasure it is to which they are drawn, whether above or below. Let us not scruple to put this to familiar and matter-of-fact tests ; there should be no false dic^nity about religion. Let us ask ourselves plain questions like these: Has our time been frittered away, in society, in amuse- ment, in the thousand distractions of life — harmless, perhaps, each one taken by itself, but in the aggregate fatal to the usefulness
' A. Smellie, Robert Murray ifCheyne, 13.
PSALM xc. 12 237
and true greatness of life ? Has God been crowded out of our thoughts ? Has our hold on the unseen diminished ? Have we become more encrusted with earthly things, till we find it im- possible to look up, prayer being more difficult and the thought of religion more unwelcome ? Is our moral courage less ? Are we more afraid to confess God before men, or to protest against insults which we hear oJSered to His name ? Are we more haunted by evil thoughts, and less able to resist them ? Have we grown in patience, cheerfulness, humility? Are we more ready to do the " little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness," which have none of the charm of heroism, and remain unknown beyond the narrowest circie ? Has our will grown in strength, so that we are less at the mercy of " chance desires " and sudden temptations, more at unity with ourselves, more settled in the drift and direc- tion of our lives ? And an answer we can give to these if we take the trouble — not necessarily the same answer to all, not perhaps an unqualified answer to many, but still something that will show us whether we are being carried along by the stream or making way against it.
^ The universe is full of miracle and mystery ; the darkness and silence are set for a sign we dare not despise. The pall of night lifts, leaving us engulphed in the light of immensity under a tossing heaven of stars. The dawn breaks, but it does not surprise us, for we have watched from the valley and seen the pale twilight. Through the wondrous Sabbath of faithful souls, the long day of rosemary and rue, the light brightens in the East ; and we pass on towards it with quiet feet and opening eyes, bearing with us all of the redeemed earth that we have made our own, until we are fulfilled in the sunrise of the great Easter Day, and the peoples come from north and south and east and west to the city which lieth foursquare — the Beatific Vision of God.^
Time speeds on his relentless track.
And — though we beg on bended knees —
No prophet's hand for us puts back The shadow ten degrees :
Yet dream we each returning spring.
When woods are decked in gold and green,
The dawning year to us will bring The best that yet has been.
' Michael Fairless, The Boadmender, 90.
238 THE RIGHT USE OF TIME
Which is an earnest of the truth
That when the years have passed away,
We shall receive eternal youth And never-ending day.
An angel to each land and clime Shall locust-eaten years restore,
And swear by Him who conquered Time That Time shall be no more.^ ' Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler, Love's Argument 115,
God's Inner Circle.
Literature.
Bcoughton (L. G.), The Soul- Winning Church, 50.
Butler (H. M.), University and Other Sermons, 264.
Darlow (T. H.), The Upward Calling, 38.
Edmunds (L.), Sunday by Sunday, 193,
Hutton (J. A.), The Fear of Things, 45.