The Time Is Shortened: A New Year Sermon on Mortality and Christian Duty

Despite family histories, despite great care of themselves, with rare exceptions; they gradually, sometimes almost imperceptibly, go down the hill toward the setting sun. Sometimes the little day of life is short, and sometimes it is longer, but such have passed the meridian. We forget the influence and effect of the occupations of men on this question. It has been said that 'printers rarely reach fifty. Watchmakers, in marking the time for others, shorten their own. Chemists breathe death in their laboratories, and potters absorb paralysis. Foundry-men take death in with the filings. Shoemakers pound away their own lives on the last. Overdriven merchants measure off their own lives on the yard-stick. Millers grind away their own lives with the grist. Masons dig their own graves with the trowel.' What is true of these occupations is true of the professions.

Literary men, in our land, go at a rapid gait; they seem always under whip and spur. Lawyers with large practice turn night into day, trim the midnight lamp and sap their brain and nervous organization. Physicians, whose business it is to cure others, frequently expose themselves unduly, and, having to go at all hours of the day and night, become themselves the victims of disease. Ministers, who are proverbially temperate and long-lived, must regularly perform their work and, despite their physical condition, must prepare and deliver the expected discourses, however many hearers may excuse themselves; and, if they expend the nervous energy they should in preparation and delivery, it is constant wear and tear on the system. Even the youths grow faint and weary and the young men utterly fall in many cases. Multitudes; nay, millions, observe no moderation, but utterly disregard the laws of health, while the elements of peril abound on the right hand and on the left. Severe climatic changes threaten on this side and our own physical organism on that. The moment we begin to live we also begin to die, and the forces of nature keep at work in their established measure until at last we succumb.

In view of these truths, what should be our attitude toward our temporal affairs? What does wisdom suggest? What does observation teach? That we ought to consider nothing as our own in real or permanent possession: that we should so adjust our temporal affairs that [...] they shall neither annoy us on our beds of sickness nor give trouble to those nearest us in the event we should be taken from them and the scenes which engage us. I have known men to refuse to insure their lives or to make a will, as if somehow this would precipitate their death. I have known others who allowed their policies to lapse, after carrying them for years, on the presumption that they could be renewed at any time in the future. I have known wives who strongly objected to such provision for them on the part of their husbands; and I have known the families with which these were connected to be plunged into double grief — grief for husband and father, grief because they were left poor and dependent. 'The time is shortened,' and I tell you, beloved, it is important from every point of view that we give due attention to these questions, which involve our reputation, our Christian character and the happiness of those nearest to us. We should accustom ourselves to care and prudence with respect to our business. We should have it in proper form with respect to receipts and disbursements. Our accounts should be kept in order and our bills provided for in this way or that — that is, if we care for our good names and our families.

Men sometimes say they don't believe in taking their business home with them to annoy themselves and their families around the hearthstone. I do not believe either for this purpose or with this result. I do believe in taking it there, however, in order that our affairs may be understood when we are gone; that all important business documents should be well and safely preserved; that administrators, trustees and courts should control our affairs only in cases of necessity; that those for whom we have toiled should enjoy the fruits of our labors. I believe that every transaction with which we are connected should be so ordered that it may never be truly said that we have wronged any mortal being, small or great, wise or simple, ignorant in the law or learned in the law; that when we go hence we may not only have clean hands, but that it may be known we had them: if need be, susceptible of clear demonstration. Alas, how many men's reputations have been besmirched when it was too late for them to go on the witness stand in their own behalf, when if they had exercised ordinary foresight such a result would have been impossible. 'A prudent man foreseeth the evil and hideth himself, but the simple pass on and are punished.'

Second — The time is shortened in which you can engage in Christian work. The year has rolled around very fast. From one year to another seemed almost a lifetime to us when we were children, but now so rapidly do they speed they are gone ere we know it. We pass the mileposts of life as swift runners, nay, even as men behind the fleetest horses, or on the lightning express. Whatsoever our hands find to do we must do quickly, or it will go undone. How much good did you do last year? How many times were you present at worship to learn how to do good? How many times at prayers with your brethren? How many pages of the glorious truths of the eternal world did you master? How many widows' and orphans' tears did you dry? How many sorrowing sick ones did you visit? How many sinning souls did you point to 'the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world?' What have you done toward saving your family, your friends and the world?

I suppose when the day of days shall come many faithful Sunday school workers will welcome to heaven those whom they have been instrumental in saving. I suppose many faithful pastors will meet those they have helped into the kingdom; that many devoted parents will rejoice that they both pointed and led the way to heaven for their children. I suppose Whitfield led thousands and tens of thousands to the feet of Jesus, and that Moody has been instrumental in opening the door of mercy to equally as many, who will meet and greet them in glory. 'Will any one, then, at the beautiful gate, be waiting and watching for you?' Believe me, beloved, it is worth while to buy up the opportunities and lay up treasures in heaven against the great day. Oh, if there is such a thing possible in heaven as sorrow over neglected privileges and opportunities, it will be felt by the man or the woman whose heart has never thrilled with rapture at leading some soul to Jesus. I do not wish to belong to this class. I do not wish simply to get within the gates of the city which hath foundations. I wish an abundant entrance. Do not you wish the same? He who would be satisfied simply to get within the gates may not get in at all.

But, my brethren, if we wish to engage in the Master's blessed work ere we go the way of all the living, some things must be regarded, which are too often disregarded. We must beware of our example, our personal influence. I was conversing with a friend once about a bright young lawyer of the community in which I lived who was a victim to the intoxicating cup, and this friend, who was profoundly interested in the young man's reformation, said the trouble was that several men in the community who held positions of influence, and some of whom were at least nominal members of the church of Jesus Christ, were the chief actors in his fall; that they were stronger than he, and having respectability, were followed by the young man as they would not have been otherwise. Now, my brethren, do you suppose these thoughtless men guiltless? Do you think this young man's blighted life will be omitted from their accounts in the day of reckoning? I tell you, nay. 'None of us liveth to himself and no man dieth to himself.' We must get away from the idea which some seem to hold, that our example and influence is of small concern. It is of profoundly great concern. The truth is that no man or woman, however poor their circumstances or mean their lot, are without their influence. Like an electric spark, passing from link to link, that runs flashing down the chain of successive generations. Indeed, a man's life is as immortal as his soul, and by his influence, though dead, he yet speaketh and worketh — outliving our memory, and more enduring than any monument of brass or marble. Our example may prove like the circle that rises round the sinking stone, and growing wider and wider, embraces a larger and larger sphere, till it dies in gentle wavelets on the distant beach. It reaches a distant shore, your example a distant time. Take care, then, how you live." (Guthrie.)

We must also be deeply in earnest. A Chinese convert once told a missionary that his people wanted men with hot hearts to tell them of the love of Christ. Nothing succeeds through lukewarmness. 'I would thou wert cold or hot,' wrote John, by the direction of Jesus, to the church at Laodicea. A church that is cold, dead and buried is past doing harm at least, but a lukewarm church is a disgrace — a standing libel on the face of Christianity. It is impossible to believe the truth of the gospel and yet be apathetic. Yes, give us hot-hearted Christians. No great movement ever succeeded without enthusiasm, and enthusiasm in Christian work depends alike on the pulpit and pew. The pastor can kindle it, if the church will receive it and beget it in others, but there must be reciprocity. A church makes the pastor as much as the pastor makes the church. Those are striking words of Hugh Price Hughes: 'We need not so much men of extraordinary ability as men of ordinary ability with extraordinary enthusiasm.' If we would bring into our religious lives somewhat of the enthusiasm we show periodically with respect to politics, or which we show quite generally with respect to business, the question of fidelity to Christ would be forever solved.

What is it Paul tells the Galatians? 'It is good to be zealously sought in a good matter at all times, and not only when I am present with you.' If we are ever going to be busy for Christ we would better be at it.

It may be the last year we shall have. We would better take hold with both hands and a whole heart, and be 'all at it and always at it.'

When the new year of 1893 dawned, according to a widely prevalent custom, there was a reunion and roll call in the church which I formerly served at Shelbyville, Ky. There was an interesting program, including letters, or visits, from former living pastors, and the members answered to their names as soldiers would when brought into battle array. Over the meeting presided the pastor, a man of fine presence, who seemed destined to live long after some present had passed away. December of the same year he passed from the stage of action, a victim to the widely prevalent malady — the grip.

We are to have such a meeting next Sunday morning. Some who were with us a year ago will not answer, for their seats have become vacant, their voices have been hushed and we shall never more feel the warm grasp of their hands this side the river of life. Others will answer in clear and soldierly tones: 'Here!' with that inflection of the voice which suggests readiness for duty. In virtue of our surroundings and life's uncertainties, I suggest some resolutions which every one of us should make our own as they are named: During thi[...]