READER! Look back over the months that have passed. Are you saved or are you still unsaved? If you are saved, you can sing now of the mercies of God that have been extended to you throughout the year. You can say, “Surely goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life.” The spring brought its mercies, and while the pulse of creation seemed to throb with new life, you felt your heart go out to God in the desire to live for Him. The summer came with glorious skies and wealth of flowers. The hand of God scattered profusion over the earth, and the bird’s song, and the insect’s hum, woke the woods and fields to melody. And then your heart was singing too, and you desired that heaven might always be shining in your heart, and the birds of faith, and hope, and love, might always sing amid the branches of the tree of life.
The scent of the new-mown hay, and the breath of the summer flowers, filled the air with perfume; and from your life, happy with its love to Christ, went up the incense of praise to God, Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer. And then the autumn came with its glorious hues, and the dying woods, with soft gradations of decay, looked beautiful beneath the radiant sun. And the golden corn was gathered in, and the ripe fruits of the teeming season, while the leaves fell thickly in the fading woods as the trees were shaken by the hand of autumn. And then you desired to work for God in the harvest fields; you desired to gather sheaves for the harvest home of heaven, and pluck the ripe fruit for God, and you went out, in the strength of God, to labor, and God, blessed you in your toil. And now the winter has come, and days are short, and nights are long. There is a chilling freshness in the air, and a silence, for the summer birds have flown. The trees, stripped of their mantles of beauty, look bare and desolate under the heavy sky.
And have you done what you could while opportunity served? Have you worked as the seasons passed, and are you working now? For even winter has its birds and flowers; and opportunities will not be wanting if you are willing to embrace them.
Unsaved one, as you read this, think of the passing months. You have been invited to Christ in the spring, summer, autumn, and winter. You heard the gospel story when the year was young, you hear it now when the year has almost gone. You are a dying sinner in a dying world. You may have lived your last year on earth. You may never see the birds of another spring, or the flowers of another summer, or the fruits of another autumn, or the snows of another winter. But when the harvest of your life on earth is past and its summer ended, will you be where the fields of glory are never reaped, and where the summer never ends? Where the birds of joy sing in the everlasting trees, and where there are no passing seasons, but one eternal day?
God bless you, reader, and give you to know Him who so loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
May this last month of the year be the beginning of months to you.