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guage from its primitive and literal meaning, Gregory Nazianzen has called our whole life, as it were, a market, the season of which, if once past, there remains no further opportunity of purchasing what we want. When applied to moral and eligious subjects, as is done in the text at the head of this article, the language intimates that it is our duty to gain or protract time and opportunity as much as possible, by prudent and blameless conduct, that we may do the more good; or in other words, that we should make the most of the time which providence grants us-make a short time appear long, by crowding it, as it were, with every possible act of mercy, justice, piety and charity.

It is not more consonant to the laws of the material world, that heavy bodies should fail to the ground, or that the mountain rivulet should descend into the valley, than it is to the constitution of man, that he should act as well as think. Or, as soon may you expect to see the waters of the Hudson returning towards their source, the mighty cataract of Niagara reascending the lofty precipice over which its tumultuous flood is continually rolling, or those bodies called projectiles, not only deviate from the curvilinear path which the force of gravity compels them to describe, but absolutely return into the mouth of the projecting engine, as expect to find in such an animal as man that vis inertiæ, or want of activity which is one of the general properties of matter.But is the incessant action or exertion of animal powers and mental faculties, what the apostle means by "redeeming time ?"No; the redeeming of time, in the sense of the apostle, is not the mere filling of it up, but doing it according to the will of God, the filling it up with duty. What Christian will say that that man redeems his time, who fills it up in the pursuits of voluptuousness, of fame, of power, of riches, in struggling from day to day to climb the tree of temporal preferment, vainly imagining to sit on the calm, peaceful and flourishing top of it.

The various methods in which the young, the middle-aged and the hoary-headed, kill time, instead of redeeming it, would open up a field much more extensive than we can at present travel over. We shall therefore restrict ourselves to a brief sketch of certain ways in which some men called philosophers and literati, choose to dispose of the days, months and years of which the short span of their lives are made up; and then close this paper withexhibiting the very singular contrast between the impressions, uses and conclusions, arising from the same common fact, viz: the shortness of time, in the case of heathen and christian writers.

The pleasure and the profit reaped in exploring the stores of Grecian and Roman literature, in conversing with the ancient

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dead, in cultivating a taste for the liberal arts, constitute an intellectual luxury unknown to the sons of folly, of mirth, and of voluptuousness. "A man's wisdom maketh his face to shine.' By it, he may be " eyes to the blind and feet to the lame." Cicero thus beautifully expresses the advantages of philosophical and literary pursuits: "These studies,” says he, “are adapted to all ages, times and places; they invigorate the minds of the young, delight and amuse the old, adorn prosperity, afford a sanctuary in adversity, delight at home, out of doors are no entanglement, lodge all night with us; if the possessor travel to foreign countries, they accompany him; if he live in the country, thither they go and dwell with him." Granting, therefore, to studies so reasonable, manly and useful, every praise which they can justly claim, we must yet boldly affirm that the man who makes them the chief business of life, does not redeem time in the sense of the apostle. Though a man had faith to remove mountains, and a high degree of all sorts of knowledge, from the stars that sparkle in the sky down to the minutest objects in nature, or possessed the highest outward privileges, he would still be an egregious fool, according to the maxims of Christianity, so long us he should be ignorant of that glorious Person, whom "to know is eternal life." Yes, real piety, springing from union to the Lord Jesus Christ, is the highest dignity and truest ornament of man. "Rejoice in this," said Christ to his apostles, "that your names are written in heaven." (6 Blessed," said a certain woman to Christ, "is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked. But he said, Yea, rather blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it." All others, whatever their attainments be, fail in attaining the sovereign good of man. And to them we may justly apply the emphatic exclamation of the Roman satirist:

"O curas homini! O quantum est in rebus inane !"*

Grotius, Salmasius, and many others of great acuteness and profound erudition, bewailed that they had lost a world of time in learned trifles. Indeed, on such frivolous questions are years of learned labour thrown away, that one is irresistibly tempted to affirm of much of the philosophy and learning of every age, what Horace, imitating, or rather copying Terrence, says of the affronts, suspicions, quarrels, parleys, &c. of lovers, "if you pretend to fix by reason, things so uncertain you act much as wisely * Thus translated by Drummond :

Unhappy men lead lives of care and pain,

Their joys how fleeting, and their hopes how vain!

as if you aimed at running mad with reason." Are not vain speculations and ludicrous questions, (scarcely a whit more important than those which Tiberius in his privacy at Caprea, discussed with the literary buffoons of his court; such as, who was the mother of Hecuba? what species of music was sung by the Syrens?) still the order of the day with many literati. For, can a man cast a glance of his eye at the squabbles of grammarians, critics and rhetoricians about the rules of their respective arts, at their labours to find out the pedigree and kindred of a little word, at their prating about various readings, accents, longs and shorts? can he listen to the strange positions and barbarous vocables with which books of logic and metaphysics are stuffed, to the intricacies and chicanery of jurists and pleaders, or view chemists "labouring in the fire and wearying themselves with any vanity?" and forbear to exclaim, O wretched taste! O scandalous waste of time and talent! "How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity, and fools hate knowledge?" "Time destroyed," as Young says, "is suicide, where more than blood is spilt." What though men gain their point in a multitude of frivolous enquiries, they will die notwithstanding, and all such knowledge perish with them. "Whether they be tongues, they shall cease, or knowledge, it shall vanish away; but charity never faileth."To man, the chief wisdom is to fear the Lord. Let us account all other knowledge loss, "for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord."

As to the opposite conclusions drawn by different persons from the same common circumstance, viz. the shortness of time, they shall be noticed very briefly. All know that time is short and fleeting; but one man converts this fact into an argument for pleasurable and vicious indulgence; whilst another converts it into an argument for pious and strenuous preparation for eternity. One says, "let us eat and drink for to-morrow we die;" the other says, the "day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night, therefore let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober." With what beautiful simplicity do those masters of poetry, Horace, Juvenal and Persius, speak of the shortness of time! Juvenal, employing the same figure which the sacred writers, Isaiah, Peter and James, have done, calls life a hasty little flower, and a very short portion which hastens to pass away. Gifford has thus expressed the meaning of the original:

For youth, too transient flower, (of life's short day
The shortest part,) but blossoms to decay.
Lo! while we give the unregarded hour
To wine and revelry, in pleasure's bower,
The noiseless foot of time steals swiftly by,
And ere we dream of manhood, age is nigh.

SAT. 9th.

Persius, imitating Horace, says, Sat. 5th-" Live mindful of death, the hour flies: the time in which I am now speaking is taken from thence."

The improvement which Horace especially recommends to his readers of the shortness of time, is entirely in the spirit of the cc comes and Epicurean philosophy. "Pale death," he says, knocks with an impartial foot at the tabernacles of the poor, and the palaces of the rich," therefore, "be wise, drink freely, cut off cares and fears, and melancholy, by cheering wine." In his fable of the country mouse and the city mouse, (Lib. 2d. Sat 6,) the language of the latter to the former may be regarded as truly expressing the spirit and conduct of many men in every age who "All that are unenlightened by the word and Spirit of God. tread the earth are subject to mortality, neither great nor small can avoid death; therefore, my good friend, let us live merrily, and remember that our time is but short." If heavy calamities hang over or fall upon men of such principles, they are considered as just so many pungent motives to the more ardent prosecution of voluptuous pursuits. We have a remarkable instance of this in the case of the Athenians, when daily swept away in great multitudes by the raging pestilence. Thucydides expressly affirms, "that they thought it right to snatch some sudden gusts of pleasure, as their bodies and possessions seemed to be equally granted but for a day." "No fear of the Gods," he adds, "or law of men deterred them; in the former case, thinking it the same thing to worship them or not, since they beheld all perishing indiscriminately: and in the latter case, no one expecting that by having lived till a trial happened, he would suffer the punishment of his crimes; but they thought that a much greater punishment, already decreed, was hanging over them, before the falling of which it was reasonable they should have some enjoyment of life." To the same purpose, Plutarch relates that Antony and Cleopatra, when their affairs became desperate, gave themselves over to wild dissipation and continual riot, and formed parties of pleasure consisting of such persons as professed a resolution to die, rather than to fall into the hands of Augustus.

What a pointed contrast is such Epicurean philosophy and conduct to the philosophy of the Bible and the conduct of true Christians! "See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.— Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. And be not drunk with wine wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit." Eph. v. 15, 16, 17, 18. "Watch," says Christ, "for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man

cometh." "This I say, brethren, the time is short: it remaineth that both they that have wives, be as though they had none; and they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not; and they that use this world, as not abusing it: for the fashion of this world passeth away." 1 Cor. vii. 29–31. The holy scriptures and ecclesiastical histories furnish many examples of men whose lives shew that they had thoroughly imbibed the spirit of these divine admonitions-whose extraordinary application to sacred studies, and unwearied assiduity in all holy duties, are rather to be regarded as prodigies, than as precedents for imitation. From the period when the Captain of our Salvation dwelt among us full of grace and truth, performing his wonders of mercy and power upon the bodies and the souls of men, down to the present time, a continued succession of men have arisen, the lustre of whose pious and holy example has shed some rays of light through the almost impenetrable gloom that has hung over the face of the moral world. How immense the labours of mind and body of an Athanasius and an Augustine! Malancthon says of Luther, "that he had seen him in a state of good health to continue four days together without eating or drinking at all, and for many days together to content himself with a little bread and a herring." The complicated daily labours of Calvin, and many others we read of, appear almost incredible. And nearer our own times who cannot admire the great diligence, exactness and piety of a Doddridge! I readily confess that no character on earth appears more truly great, and venerable, and useful, than a discreet, laborious and faithful pastor, watching for the souls of his flock as one that must give an account, and holding out to their imitation in his own life, an animating example of all that is pure, and good, and lovely, and of good report. And would to God, that all our clergy stood acquitted from the charge of an indolent waste of time; that to all of them belonged the characters of a scriptural bishop; that they were always found at their posts, visiting and teaching from house to house; "instant in season and out of season, reproving, rebuking, exhorting, with all long suffering and doctrine;" praying over the sick; longing after the salvation of their hearers, till Christ be formed in them the hope of glory. But what a pest and disgrace to the Christian name, is a haughty, frivolous, indolent, lukewarm, clergyman! "His very fife is one continued crime."

VOL. III.

S.

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