(2) It is in youth that we can offer a generoits devotion of self. — It is easy to see how dishonourable it is to ofifer to God the blind and lame and sick instead of the healthy and vigorous part of our lives ; yet we may feel it the more if we compare that which we sacrifice to God with what God sacrificed for us. What He gave up indeed, in coming down from heaven, we cannot possibly measure or understand ; but look at His life after He was made Man, and there learn what is a true generous devotion of the best of self. Look at Him who was born in a stable on a winter night, that there might be no moment kept back from the work He had to do, that He might begin to suffer from the first ; who worked unknown and unhonoured for thirty years, a poor man's Son and a poor Man Himself, that He might know all the petty worrying cares of everyday life, as well as the great sufferings that it is noble and heroic to endure. He had very little time to take His pleasure in. The evil days came on Him very soon — days in which He had no pleasure, but in which His soul was exceeding sorrowful, even unto death ; when the sun and the light was darkened, not in the heaven only, but in His soul, as He cried, " My God, why hast thou forsaken me ? " Indeed, He gives us more time to be happy in than He had Himself. Is His perfect life, His early death, a thing to be repaid with the shortest, latest, poorest days that we count that enough to offer Him ?
* W, Ward, The Life of John Henry Cardinal I/^eioman, i. 674t
426 TIMELY REMEMBRANCE
^ The outline of the life of Jesus Christ, in all its human essentials, is that of a failure as complete as can be conceived ; and yet the historic figure we know and think of stands out in all human essentials as a Conqueror. And, re-examining that life, in the light of its own standard, we shall see One who so truly over- came, both in Himself and in His influence, that nothing seems to yield such copious hint of the solution of life's mystery as does His " failure." His failure stands not in a loss of spirituality, but in the superabundance and intensity of it. The isolation of His Spirit did not result in a diminution of the ideal, any more than did disappointment sour, or poverty embitter, Him. The bare out- line of His life is harsh and forbidding ; it is that of a failure : but upon near approach, it is found to be lit by an inner light, and in the light of that personal life we see a form of wondrous beauty and commanding awe. In a word, the personality of Jesus Christ is as sublime a triumph as His life is supreme among failures.^
(3) If we remember the Creator in our youth, He will remember us in our old age. — It cannot be truly said by an aged Christian, " I have no pleasure " ; and though there may be " clouds," he has also long and sunny intervals, and beyond this cloudy region he has blessed prospects. The peace which the Saviour gives to His people is a well of water springing up unto everlasting life ; and there is nothing that keeps the feelings so fresh and youthful as a perennial piety. Compare that young sceptic, who has half persuaded himself into the disbelief of God and hereafter, and whose forced unbelief is often interrupted by intrusions of unwelcome conviction, — compare him with "Paul the aged" in prison, writing, " I know whom I have believed. I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand ; I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth, there is laid up for me a crown of righteous- ness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day."
^ The biographies of two veterans appeared so simultaneously as almost to compel the contrast. Their declining days were somewhat similar. When getting old and feeling frail, they lost some of their dearest friends, and each lost his fortune. In these circumstances Sir Walter Scott writes, " The recollection of youth, health, and uninterrupted powers of activity, neither improved nor enjoyed, is a poor strain of comfort. . . . Death has closed
* T. .T. Hardy, The Gospel of Pain.
ECCLESIASTES xii. i 427
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 for me at no distant period, provided such be the will of God. I shall never see the threescore-and-ten, and shall be summed up at a discount. No help for it, and no matter either." Eecovering from a similar slight illness, Wilberforce remarked, " I can scarce understand why my life is spared so long, except it be to show that a man can be as happy without a fortune as with one." And then, soon after, when his only surviving daughter died, he writes, "I have often heard that sailors on a voyage will drink, ' Friends astern,' till they are half way over, then * Friends ahead.' With me it has been * friends ahead ' this long time." ^