Evening, March 10
Go To Morning Reading
“Man ... is of few days, and full of trouble.”
Job 14:1
It may be of great service to us, before we fall asleep, to remember
this mournful fact, for it may lead us to set loose by earthly things.
There is nothing very pleasant in the recollection that we are not
above the shafts of adversity, but it may humble us and prevent our
boasting like the Psalmist in our morning’s portion. “My mountain standeth firm: I shall never be moved.” It may stay us from taking too deep root in this soil from which
we are so soon to be transplanted into the heavenly garden. Let us
recollect the frail tenure upon which we hold our temporal mercies . If we would remember that all the trees of earth are marked for
the woodman’s axe, we should not be so ready to build our nests in them. We should
love, but we should love with the love which expects death, and which
reckons upon separations. Our dear relations are but loaned to us,
and the hour when we must return them to the lender’s hand may be even at the door. The like is certainly true of our
worldly goods . Do not riches take to themselves wings and fly away? Our health is equally precarious. Frail flowers of the field, we must not reckon
upon blooming forever. There is a time appointed for weakness and
sickness, when we shall have to glorify God by suffering, and not
by earnest activity. There is no single point in which we can hope
to escape from the sharp arrows of affliction; out of our few days
there is not one secure from sorrow. Man’s life is a cask full of bitter wine; he who looks for joy in it had
better seek for honey in an ocean of brine. Beloved reader, set not
your affections upon things of earth: but seek those things which
are above, for here the moth devoureth, and the thief breaketh through, but there all joys are perpetual and eternal. The path of trouble is the way
home. Lord, make this thought a pillow for many a weary head!