How of the figures on this little spot of time is seen very busy in collecting the little pebbles or particles of shining dust around him. foolish this, when he must know that the rolling tide will foon overflow all around him. Equally foolish is he, who, in this tranfitory life, instead of looking upward and using the means Providence has placed within his reach for his escape from overflowing destruction, spends his precious moments in collecting the little baubles and toys of earth. On the left is seen one who appears to be gravely philosophizing upon the scene he beholds around him. He realizes that he is standing on a speck of earth, in the midst of a mighty ocean, of which he can neither see the bottom nor the shore. He looks backward; all is dark to his vision; he looks around him; all is mysterious and incomprehensible; forward; all, all, is thick darkness. He is sensible that the tide of death will foon overflow him and all with whom he is connected; but will eternal oblivion and forgetfulness be his portion? Perhaps he thinks fo; but at times the immortal spirit will stir within him and "startle back" at the thought of annihilation. Ah, poor fool! he turns his back and will not look at the bright chain of God's Providence which so manifestly appears. Perhaps he may try to perfuade himself that the chain hangs there by chance. He has been told that earth and heaven are connected by it. He professes to fee no necessary connection; he cannot fee its begin ning, how it is supported on high. He has heard that by it man can be elevated to a heavenly life. This may appear foolishness to him. Perhaps he may think that if man were destined to live hereafter, he would not have been placed on these mortal shores; or if immortal, it will be in some other mode than that pointed out in the Bible. He is wife in his own conceit. He turns himself from God's method of falvation; refuses to look upward; continues to reason "in endless mazes loft;" will not lay hold of the only hope set before him; he "wonders and perishes" in the overflowing of the mighty waters. One of the perfons on the little island is seen with his eyes turned upward; his hands are uplifted in thankfulness and adoration. He beholds the bright chain of God's Providential mercy; he lays hold of the only hope set before him. It is true he can see but a few of the connecting links of the golden chain above, but he fully believes that it is connected with, and sustained by, an Almighty Power above. He has occasional glimpses of the all-feeing eye; he feels that he is under its fupervision. He feels himself encircled, upheld and sustained, by Infinite power and love, and rejoices that all things are under the control of a kind Providence. It is true the Christian may see clouds and darkness above, around, and below him. He may not know why fin, and confequently mifery, is fuffered to exist in the universe of God. He may not know why he is placed here in the circumstances by which he is furrounded. He weeps often; it may be to see how fin has laid waste the works of God; how the wicked often triumph, and the good are crushed into the dust. He may not know the beginning or origin of God's Providential dealings, how far they reach into this or other worlds. But notwithstanding the Christian may not be able to fathom these and many other subjects, yet he confides in the Almighty power above. He lays hold of falvation; he is elevated to the regions of eternal light and glory, while his unbelieving companions perish amid the dark rolling waters of the ocean. The ocean has sometimes been confidered as an emblem of eternity, on account of its vast extent, its fathomless depths, and its appearance to human vision oftentimes as without a bottom or shore. "Eternity," says one, "with respect to God is a duration without beginning or end. With regard to created beings, it is a duration that has a beginning, but will never have an end. It is a duration that excludes all number and computation; days, months, and years, yea and ages, are loft in it like drops in the ocean. Millions of millions of years, as many years as there are sands on the fea-shore, or particles of dust in the globe of the earth, and these multiplied to the highest reach of number, all these are nothing to eternity. They do not bear the imaginable proportion to it, for these will come to an end as certainly as a day; but eternity will never, never, never come to an end! It is a time without an end! it is an ocean without a shore! Alas! what shall I say of it? it is an infinite, unknown something, that neither human thought can grasp, nor human language describe!" |