CONSIDER, reader, for a few moments yourself! Take counsel with yourself about yourself, say, “I am ever to be,” and seek to fathom the depths of your existence. You do not live by bread alone, nor only for bread. At times you think, for you are a human being, and cannot help so doing. And as you think, and as the eye of your mind pierces beyond the limits of the circle of present circumstances, you realize that you yourself are more lasting than the world, and all that is in it. Within you there is that which plainly testifies that there will be no end of yourself. Let the world decay, let death come, still you will ever be. Forever and forever it will be yours to say, “I live, I feel.”
In the presence of this contemplation how vain to you are the shifting ideas and scenes of time: What are the improvements, the discoveries of this age—its telegraphs, its electric lights? At the most but a change of attire—a fashion which out forefathers knew not. And what the “isms,” the notions of this nineteenth century? Clouds which before the twentieth arise will have vanished away But you yourself, where neither electric light not telegraphic messages are boasted in, where neither isms nor notions exist, will forever be, still yourself, even as your predecessors who centuries age passed out of time into eternity, out of this changeful world into that state which is unalterable.
Now what are your thoughts respecting yourself in the eternity which is to come? Are the) confused, uncertain thoughts? Have you but dim notion before you? Is the future to you a kind of mist, wherein your mind wanders and is lost Let us present to you one definite reality, which for the Christian, answers great questions concerning himself in connection with his future, and order to do this we ask you to look backwards for a moment, and to consider the secret of the lives of many who once, as you, lived upon this earth, but whose spirits now live elsewhere.
In the oldest book this world knows—the Bible—we find records of men who lived in different ages, men of varied characters, and surrounded with various circumstances—some rich, others poor—the wisest the world ever possessed, and men ignorant and unlearned—men of the times before the law, men under the law, and also living in God’s day of grace. These men are all characterized by one similarity, their souls all bear one moral feature plainly marked upon them. And, indeed, we might turn to numberless biographies of comparatively recent years—some of Roman Catholics, others of Protestants—some of little children, others of aged men—to find the selfsame features which the Word of God delineates in those of whom we have spoken. There is in all of these one common soul feature, and it is—happiness in God. God Himself the spring of the joy of each—all of them children of one family! Yes, each of their souls seems to utter one voice: “Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations.”
Happiness in God is a definite reality, and surely it addresses us to the contemplation of these very persons, their spirits still living elsewhere, and their present utterance being, as it were, where generations are not reckoned, “Lord, Thou art our dwelling-place.”
God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, reader. He is the God of the fathers still, though they are with Him and not with us. God is their happiness. God will ever be their happiness. As you contemplate yourself; your existence, lay it well to heart whether God is now your portion, your present joy?
Perhaps, reader, it has been your lot to witness the veil which hides the unseen world from our eyes almost lifted, as one dear to you has passed out of this scene to be forever with the Lord, and you have felt that the friend you lamented had but left time for eternity, to enjoy without distraction and more deeply, happiness in God and His Son. How paltry, then, did the greatest glories of this world appear before your soul!
We are about to bid each other farewell for another year, and as the last days of dark December die away let this be your solemn inquiry of yourself; “Is God my portion? Is my happiness in God and in His Son?” We do not ask you, dear friend, what name you bear in the religious world, but placing ourselves by your side and standing lovingly with you upon the very borders of the shore of time, and looking onwards over the boundless sea of eternity as we remind you that yours is an existence, which can never be extinguished, we ask, “Is your happiness in God?”
H. F. W.
A QUESTION FOR YOU.