Sylvanus Stall

Suggestion:—Object: An ordinary clock or watch.

Whatever is valuable we measure. Some things are measured by the yard, some things by the quart or gallon, other things by the pound or by the ton. Land is measured by the acre. One of the most valuable things that God gives to us is time. Queen Elizabeth, when she was dying, was willing to give her entire kingdom if she could only have one hour more in which to prepare for death.

As time is very valuable we measure it in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, centuries. In the earliest time men had no means of measuring time, except as they saw it measured with the great clock which God has set in the heavens; for He tells us in the first chapter of Genesis that He made "the sun to rule the day, and the moon to rule the night." The most accurate clocks in the world are those which most nearly keep time with the sun. All the effort to regulate clocks and watches is simply to adjust their movements so as to have them keep time with the movement of the sun. God has given us a conscience which is designed to regulate our lives until they shall be in harmony with the life of Christ, who is the Sun of Righteousness. Hundreds of years before Christ came, people may have had some very rude way of dividing the time during the day and night, but their principal division of time was simply day and night, summer and winter. These changes of day and night, summer and winter, helped to mark the progress of time, and they still do. If it were all daytime, or all night, and we had no clocks, we would have no means of measuring time. When Baron de Trench was liberated from his dungeon in Magdeburg, where the King of Prussia had confined him in darkness for a period of ten years, where he had no means of measuring how the time passed and had even very few thoughts—when he was liberated, and was told that he had been in prison for ten years, his astonishment was almost beyond expression, for it had not seemed to him to be so long. It had passed away like a painful dream.

In the early period of the world's history, human life was much longer than at present. Men lived to be several hundred years old. I suppose you can all tell how old Methuselah was. He was the oldest man who ever lived. When human life became shorter, time consequently became more valuable and men were more anxious to measure it.

I want to show you how to measure time, and what makes it valuable; for David asked to be taught properly to number his days; and the purpose was so that he might apply his heart unto wisdom.

Now, this watch and this clock are instruments with which we measure time. Once there was a king who desired not to forget that, like other men, he must die, and he had a man whose duty it was to come before him each hour and repeat the words: "Remember thou art mortal!" That is, every hour he had this man remind him that sometime he would have to die. Each time the man came in before the king, he was reminded that he had one hour less to live; so, each and every time that you hear the clock strike, you should be reminded of the fact that another hour has passed, and that you have one less to live. In this sense every clock has a tongue, and when it strikes it tells us that we will now have one hour less to live upon the earth.

The earliest device for measuring time was doubtless the sun-dial. Perhaps you have never seen one. It is simply a round plate or disc of metal, with a small piece of metal standing upright in such a position that when the sun shines, the shadow will be thrown upon the round cylinder or disc, around which are figures like those on the face of a watch or clock. Such methods of measuring time we know were used at least seven hundred and thirteen years before Christ, for in the book of Isaiah, thirty-eighth chapter and eighth verse, we find a very direct allusion to it. King Alfred of England used to use candles that were of uniform length; each candle would burn three hours, and by burning four candles, one after another, he could measure the hours of the day. In order to prevent the air from blowing against the candle and thus making it burn more rapidly or interfering with its accuracy in measuring time, he placed a horn or shield around it, and in the old cathedrals this was the way they measured time. Later on they had hour glasses, such as you sometimes see placed on the piano when girls are practicing their music lesson. Sometimes you see small ones in the kitchen, which are used for timing the eggs while they are boiling, and it is to these forms of glasses that various poetical allusions are made when death is spoken of as the "sands of life" running out.

Later came the clocks. They were first made about 2,000 years ago, but were very rude and awkward. The first watches were made about 475 years ago, but they were very large, and you would almost need to have a man to carry your watch for you, it was so heavy. Smaller watches were first made about 200 years ago, and now they have some that are so very small that you could carry six or seven of them in your vest pocket without inconvenience. How else could we tell about the time of the departure of trains and steamboats, the hours to go to work in the factory or to go to school, when to go to church? And the enjoyment of many other things depends upon knowing accurately what moment we should be on hand. You should learn never to be late, but always to be prompt. Suppose that, with an audience of six hundred people, the preacher should be five minutes late. Each person would then have lost five minutes. This, for the entire six hundred present, would have been equal to more than forty-eight hours for a single person—more than two days and two nights.

But now what is it that makes time valuable? It is the use that we can make of it. David wanted to know about it, so that he could apply his heart unto wisdom. The man who does nothing with his time, in the eyes of others, is worth nothing; but the busy man always finds that his time is very valuable. It is strange, also, that when you go to idle people and ask them to do anything they always say they haven't time, so that the expression has come to be used that "if you want anything done go to a busy man." The more busy the man is the more likely he is to find time, in some way, to undertake any new form of useful endeavor and work.

Now, I want to ask you, What use do you make of your time? Are you faithful in the use of every moment at home, diligent in doing the work assigned you, looking about you, and doing your own thinking, finding, for yourself, what is to be done, instead of standing around and waiting to be told? Are you diligent in school, always studying your lessons, learning all that you possibly can, remembering that everything that you can learn will at some time be of service to you? If you are employed in a store, or engaged in any other kind of business, are you faithful, using each moment and each hour, remembering that you are not to be faithful simply when your employer is looking at you, but you are to be faithful at all times? As the Bible says, "Not with eye service, as men pleasers" (Colos. iii: 22), but doing everything as unto the Lord. Are you faithful in the matter of attending church, and then when you are in the church, giving your mind to the consideration of the truth which is being presented, rather than allowing your mind to be engaged with the amusements and plays of last week, or the plans and purposes of next week? Are you faithful in the Sunday-school? Do you listen attentively to the lessons which are taught by your Sunday-school teacher? Each minute of the thirty devoted to the study of the lesson is very important, and all of the other moments in the Sunday-school are very important.

I was wondering the other day why the clock should have the long hand point to the minutes, and the short hand to the hours; but after all, it seems very wise that the greater emphasis, and greater importance should be attached to the longer hand. It points to the minutes, as though it were constantly saying to you and to me, look out for these minutes, look out for these small parts of the hour, and the whole hour will take care of itself. The big hand points to the minutes because, after all, they are the important things. It is like the old saying, "if we take care of the pennies, the dollars will take care of themselves." If we will take care of the minutes, the hours will take care of themselves.

If you have never thought on these things, and have been an idler, I want to ask you to "Redeem the time." (Eph. v: 16.) That is, do not let your time go to waste. If you are not a Christian, even though you are very busy and very industrious concerning temporal things, you are really wasting your time. We are placed here upon the earth in order that we may love and serve God. That is our main business here. If we are going to serve Christ, we should study to know His life and His teachings, and yet some people know very little about the Bible. Did you ever stop to think that a man who is thirty-five years old has had five solid years of Sundays? And the man who is seventy years old, has had ten solid years of Sundays? With ten years given to worship and the study of God's Word, a man at seventy ought to know a great deal concerning the teachings of the Bible. May God teach us so to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.