Now you have probably noticed that' most of these hymns. speak both of the evening of the day and of the evening of life. It is true there is no laborious pointing out of the parallel, but the same lange age expresses the. intermingi thoughts of both. At our morning services the voices of old and young indeed unite, but our thoughts are those connected with the morning of life: its freshness, its energy, its tasks, ite" plan, its problems" At the "evening. services the voices again are, those of youth at well 35 age, but our thoughts are more naturally those of the evening of Rife, of "ie last of life for. which the' first. wap made," as Browning What -are some of the things naturally. connect both with: the closing hours of the day and with'|[™ the evening of life?
Phe-evening is a time' of' prospect and' of reflexion. The book of Genesis speaks of "the cool of the day". By- evening time: the, rush the noise, the "heat and: ex-of quiet has come. Perhaps you will tell me that in our modern JJife it is not so, that the quiet evening is obsolete, that the real movement and thrill of life only begin towards midnight, that the hours of daylight are dull and are only tolerated as a preparation for the night of pleasure, But if that hai indeed become the rule rather than the exception is it not at considerable cost? Had not the quiet evening atourd the hearth a value of its own, and if it has passed away, are we'not the poorer? And there must still, remain many for whom the evening is a time of reflexion, The day is the time for action, for the putting forth of effort, for the spending of strength, The evening is the time for review, for scrutiny, for examination, for calm thought, for recuperation. And any thi that robs us of this opportunity of this mood tends to impoverish our life and make it shallow, And this is equally true of the evening of life. Youth and manhood are the time for action, for worthy deeds. And life makes' heavy demands on most of us. "Except a man work neither shall he eat" is a law written large over life and we should be unwise to quarrel with it, In all normal cases there are many years when the profession, the business, the craft, the inddustry in which we are engaged, and by which we live, consume most of our energies and employ most of our time. But the years pass and the speed of their passing seems accelerated as time goes on, Perhaps it is morbid to dwell upon this unduly, but it were folly to ignore it entirely. And how shall old age be spent? Surely in garnering the lessons of life: in penetrate ing into its meaning; in discovering its secret.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.