Christian Nation Vol. 18 1893 - Rparchives.org

_3^-i"D Y WHAT means shall a young man learnT -'—' His way to purify?If he according to Thy wordt Thereto attentive be.I Unfeignedly Thee have I soughtWith all my soul and heart;O let me not from the right pathOf Thy commands depart.Thy word I in my heart have hid.That I oflfend not Thee,Jehovoh, ever blessed art Thou,Thy statutes teach Thou me.The judgments of Thy mouth, each one.My hps declared have ;More ]oy Thy testimonies' wayThan riches all me gave.Thy boly precsptrl-will make, My meditation still;And unto Thy ways have respectMost carefully I will.Upon Thy statutes my delightShall constantly be set;S. S. LESSON And, XI., by Thy SABBATH, grace, I never JUNE will 11, 1893.Thy holy word forget.The Creator Remembsred. Eccl. 12; 1-7: 1 14.GOUJEN TEXT :Bemember now thy Creator in ihe daya of thy youth.Eccl. 12:1.remember, in the sense that the word is usedin the Fourth commandment. We rememberthe Sabbath day, when we keep it holy. And- 1 Remember now thy Creator ia the days ot thy youth, so we remember our Creator, when we glorifywhile the evil days oome not, nor the years draw nigh, when him, by constantly recognizing him in our lifethon Shalt say, I have no pleasure in them ;and work. And the personality of the duty is2 While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, emphasized by the possessive pronoun. He isbe not darkened, nor the olonde retnrn after the rain : thy Creator. The obligation can be discharged3 In the aay when the keepers of the house shall tremble, only by a personal recognition of the same.ana the strong meu shall bow themselves, and the grinders Every person must stand or fall, upon the recognizanceor ignoring of that relation. Whenoease beoanse they are few, and those that look out of thewindows be darkened.4 And the doors shall be shut iu the streets, when thesound of the grinding is low, aud he shall rise up at theCHRISTIAN NATION. Volnme 18.tion is to you who are in the morning of lite.R E L I G I O U S A N D D E V O T I O N A L .And it is worth while to notice closely the argument.Evil days are approaching. Thecontext refers these evil days to the period ofof death. The lesson may be considered under old age. But there are often evil days beforethe following heads :we reach the period of old age. Alas! sickness,I. The Admonition.sorrow, disappointment, and death often fallupon the young. A young woman who recentlyII. The Abgument.died, said during her last sickness, " Oh howIII. The Application.glad I am that I found Christ before this hourI. The Adm ^nition. " Remember now thy came upon me! It would be hard work now,Creator in the days of thy youth," v. 1. Look if, along with this suffering I had to hunt forcarefully at this admonition. 1. " Remember Jeeus." But old age is rapidly approaching.thy Creator." The word is in, the plural, de­Lookinnoting the excellency and inflnite fulness offorward from childhood, life looksvery long. Looking back from old age, howshort it is! But old age is full of evil. " Fewthe one recommended. The Hebrews delightedin the use of plurals. The ordinary name ofthe divine being is always plural. Wisdomin Proverbs is plural. " Blessedness," in thePs. 1 : 1 is plural. This was a way they hadto express superlatives. The plural form ofthe word directs attention to tho excellency ofthe person. Of him we may say, " he is thechiefest among ten thonsand, and altogetherlovely."2. "Remember thy Creator." The greatduty of life is to recognize the relation betweenus and our Creator. This is what is meant bythe word " remember." It does not merelysignify that we shall occasionally think thatGod made us, but we will live with the fact beforeus, that, as we are his workmanship weowe to him the best service of our lives. It issecond his verdict.asked what church he belonged to, a business " Those that look out of the windows "—notman leplied, " to the Presbyterian church— the ordinary windows, but the openings in thethat is, my mother belongs to it;" and he is a observatory upon the top of the house, where thevoice of the bird, and all the daughters of musio shall be man of forty-five, and has never passed out of sentinels are constantly on the lookout—thebrought low :the arms of his mother, religiously. Mother's eye.fi Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and religion will be of value to us on a death bed, Old age dims the vision, and sometimes tbefears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, only in as far as we make it our religion. sight is lost entirely in old age. Perhaps Solomonkuew nothing of glasses in his day. Theand the grasshopper shall be a burden, and deaire shall fail: 3. Remember now thy Creator in the days ofbecause man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go thy yonth. This thought does not say that the admonition was of still more force, but even.about the streets :period of old age shall be exempt from such they became a burden to the old. " Oh! what6 Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be recognition of duty as the text suggests, but it did I do with my glasses?" Children whobroken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the does urge that the duty shall not be deferred have perfect eyes do not know the agony thatwheel broken at the Rev. cistern. T. P. Robb,funtil theu. And there are the best of reasons calls out that oft repeated question. And then7 Then snall-the dust return to the earth as it was ; andThe lesson brings us face to face with the for this. ±or one thing, a duty deferred-is the old, who cannot see without the glasses,the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. • i*final end of man. He who had tested all most likely to be a duty neglected. Early life cannot remember where they put them. They13 Let us hear the oonolusion of the whole matter ; Fearphases of life, and every device under thc sun is the formative period, and is likely to determinethe whole life of the person. One who is the things of yesterday and today they forget.remember the things of their youth well, butGod, and keep his oommandments: for this is the wholefor the enjoyment of life, comes at this last endditfi/ of manifFor God shall bring every work into judgment, withto give his testimony. Life is compared to a surrounded by religious influences, and neglectsthem, is likely to live and die without any ofE the remembrance of Christ for old age?Would it not be largely the same if they putlofty castle, which is occupied by a living person,and as he is a person of distinction, he is religion. And this is because his life of neg­Would they not forget their prayers, andevery secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.attended by many servants and guards who lect grieves the Holy Spirit, and he gives him praises, and all their duties, just as they dowatch over his varied interests. We are told over to hardness of heart. The Holy Spirit their glasses?in the lesson how we may make old age endurable,and death easy. The test of every man's ous to put aside the exercises of religion. We Some think this refers to the mouth, but others,will not always strive with man. It is danger­" And the doors shall be shut in the streets."life is at the end. No man has proved his life may, in the future, " flnd no place of repentance,though we seek it carefully, with tears." ears." These openings are the doors throughand perhaps more correctly, interpret, " thea good one, until he has lived out that life.The admonition of chap. 11 : 9, 10 comes into But there is another reason why the early life which the sound of joy, or sorrow, or dan'^erclose connection with the lesson. Touth is should be devoted to Christ. We owe Christ enter. Often one of the earliest indications ofthe proper time for enjoyment. Cheerfulness the very best we have. We should give him approaching age is dullness of hearing. Notis becoming in the young. It will be attended the " dew of our youth." It is the best part of unfrequently the hearing of the old becomeswith good results, if the joy of youth is controlledby the fear of the Lord. " Sorrow is tire life is not too much to give him, for he society. They cannot hear the most familiarour lives, why should not he have it. An en­so bad that they are practically shut out fromput away from the heart, when evil is put away gave an entire life for us.sounds ; the grinding—the two stones operatedfrom the flesh." With this as his text, Solomonproceeds to advise the young, how theyheard all over the house; the old scarcely hearit.II. The Argument. Solomon bases his ar­by the servants made a noise that might bemay meet the trials of old age, and the event"He shall rise up at the voice of the bird."We cannot sleep as iu youth. The bird beginsgument, in support of the admonition, uponthe fact that old age is not a fittime to begin areligious life. Had a person lived to old age,and then for the firsttime learned of the Creator,we could hope for him. But this admoni­and evil have the days of the years of my lifebeen," was the verdict of Jacob. And possiblyPharaoh lived to appreciate the truth. Nothingbrings on old age so fast as improperlyspending youth. Extreme old age has littlepleasure in it. Touth is sunshine, v. 2. Oldage is shadow, and shade, and darkness. Touthis spring-time and summer : old age is autumnand winter. These are poetic figures,bnt veryreal.In the verses that follow, the body is representedas the house we live in, and the membersof the body, attendants on the person whoresides within. " The keepers of the house,"the strong arms which have always been extendedto defend and protect and provide forthe home, in old age, become weak, and " hangdown." "Thestrong men," the sturdy limbswhich carried the body, nor felt the weight,these, in old age, grew weak, and totter beneaththe weight. "The grinders," those useful organs,the teeth, like the slaves that grind thegrain for the household, these cease to do theirnecessary work, because they have decayed andfallen out, or diseased, have been extracted.Solomon knew nothing about artificial teeth.Perhaps if he had, he would have said, " Vanityof vanities."Some who wear them, would