“DAY UNTO DAY UTTERETH SPEECH.”
By N. Orcutt
INSPIRATION very often makes use of natural objects, and events of every day occurrence, that are as familiar as household words, to illustrate and enforce the duties and obligations which fill up the warp of life. Thus the way is made so plain, that none need err therein, and the great lessons we have to learn, are brought down, so to speak, to our finite capacity. Thus principles, which, if abstractly stated, might, in the hurry and bustle of life's busy scenes, be passed unheeded and unappreciated, clothed in familiar garb, are made attractive, arrest our attention, become part of our stock of knowledge, contributing to fit us for usefulness, and to guard us against the snares of Satan,—against the dangers that beset life's checkered pathway. Brought in this manner before our minds, great truths, by their simplicity, charm, and attractiveness, are treasured up in memory's storehouse, occupying a place there that otherwise might be held by the false and pernicious principles emanating from the great champion of error, the enemy of all good. A vacuum in the human mind can only extend, or be the result of, imbecility, or idiocy. The rich soil, prepared by the great Husbandman, if not sown with good seed, will inevitably produce noxious weeds. Created with a capacity for238improvement, in all that is good, and true, and elevating; if no progress be made in the work of overcoming, of improvement, the opposite tendency will be manifest, every time. We are not so constituted as to remain stationary. We are always either gathering with the Saviour, growing in grace, while we gain a daily experience, or scattering abroad, while we yield the ground to the enemy. While we are at all times, whether we realize it or not, bearing either the fruits of the flesh or of the Spirit, as we are guided by the Spirit of God, or led captive by the enemy at his will, how manifest the goodness and mercy of God, in condescending to simplify, by a variety of illustrations, giving line upon line, and precept upon precept, endeavoring to win us to himself. How truly has he said of his rebellious people, “Though I taught them, rising up early and teaching them, yet they have not hearkened to receive instruction.” Jer. xxxii, 33. By these varied illustrations, the truth, in its relations to us, or in the relation we sustain to it, has become so intimately connected with the natural objects with which we are surrounded, with the minutiae of every-day life, that its heaven-born principles are continually enforced upon us. As day after day passes in rapid succession, we are reminded that the time here allotted us to form and develop characters, is fast passing away, and that each day, with its privileges and blessings, will very soon meet us in the Judgment, and by the sum of this daily record, we shall be justified or condemned. We may derive instruction, encouragement, and consolation, or receive reproof, or admonition, from almost every circumstance in the daily routine of life. We awake from sleep in the morning, from unconsciousness, to meet the obligations and duties of life; and as we arouse from slumber, to grapple with its stern realities, to enter upon its toils and labors, we are admonished that we should shake off the apathy and drowsiness which the enemy strives to force upon us; that we should awake to righteousness, to a sense of the solemnity of the times in which we live; to realize our weakness and inability, in our own strength, to accomplish the great work before us; and to the paramount importance of a constant, persistent effort to complete that work before the day closes. We arise from our beds, to enter upon the duties of a new day; so should we arise to newness of life, determined to achieve some victory, to avoid the errors of yesterday, to see to it that to-day we have a better, clearer record in the great ledger above; that there may be recorded some progress in the great work of overcoming our foes. We robe ourselves. We should remember the necessity of being clad with the white robe of righteousness; that soon an examination will reveal whether we have on the wedding garment or not. We remember that this robe is provided by Him who has bidden the guests to the marriage feast, and proffered for our acceptance. We should let the consideration rest with ponderous weight upon our minds, that when the Master comes to examine the guests, if found without the garment so generously provided for our use, and so indispensably requisite for the occasion, it will be forever too late to make amends for our neglect. Hunger urges nature's claims for sustenance; and this reminds us that daily we need to partake of food, to supply our oft-returning, physical wants. Without it our strength and vigor depart. We no more feel the buoyancy and elasticity of health. So with our spiritual wants; daily they too must be supplied. The bountiful provision, so graciously given in the past, does not suffice for the present. And, while we feel a sense of our wants, we hunger and thirst after righteousness, and long to be filled with all the fullness of God. If, in any degree, we feel ourselves to be wanderers in a strange land, and, like the prodigal, we begin to be in want, we leave the husks to the swine, and return to our Father's house, where there is bread enough, and to spare. Constrained by his love, we throw ourselves upon his mercy, pleading his forgiveness, and in humility asking to be assigned only a subordinate place in our former home. We perform our morning ablutions, to prepare to surround the earthly board, with food to satisfy the demands of nature, and as we thus remove physical impurity, we see how morally and spiritually unfit we are to partake of the rich repast to which the Spirit and the Bride invite us. We remember, with gratitude, that there is a fountain opened for sin and spiritual uncleanness, that while ruined by transgression, a Saviour's blood is efficacious to cleanse from the foul stains of sin, and prepare us, with clean hands and a pure heart, to ascend into the hill of the Lord, to stand in his holy place. We must be washed, made clean, the scarlet and the crimson become white as wool or snow, or we never can partake of the fruit of the vine, with the dear Redeemer, in the kingdom of God. We partake of earthly food to nourish and strengthen our decaying natures. As we feel invigorated and refreshed thereby, our minds go out in contemplation of our Father's table, spread with the rich bounties of the bread and water of life. By faith we partake of meat that the world knows not of, “which endureth unto everlasting life.” We hear the Saviour say: “I am that bread of life.” “This is that bread that cometh down from Heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die.” John vi, 48, 50. “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst.” John iv, 14. The supply is inexhaustible. Day by day, we may draw from Heaven's full storehouse, a rich, ample supply for every spiritual want. We eat, and are refreshed. We drink of life's healing stream, and feel the “well of water springing up into everlasting life.” We labor with our hands, to lay up an earthly treasure, to supply our physical wants in the future; a commendable object, if we make the effort subordinate to the great and only true object of life. The exertion, thus put forth, should bring forcibly before our minds the transcendent importance of laboring zealously for durable riches in righteousness, to lay up a treasure “in Heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, nor thieves break through nor steal.” If the effort put forth be in proportion to the value of the object of that effort, shall we not remember that while earthly treasure is liable to fail, an earthly inheritance to be wrested from us, the heavenly inheritance is incorruptible, undefiled, and fadeth not away? How will our earthly wants, which can be supplied by earthly treasure here, sink into insignificance, when compared with the necessities which present themselves in connection with that period which is only spanned by eternity—necessities which naught but a treasure laid up in Heaven can supply. Though we now fail to estimate each at their proper value, we may see that the heavenly inheritance demands our first attention; that our most earnest efforts should be put forth, to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. We can realize the importance of seeking first the kingdom of God, of making to ourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that we may share infinite wealth with him who was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we, through his poverty might become rich. We go out and behold God's handiworks, as exhibited in the great book of nature. Notwithstanding the effects of the curse are everywhere visible, we see much that we delight to gaze upon. Although every page that is unfolded to our view, is blotted and stained by the effects of sin, yet enough of beauty and harmony remains to aid the imagination in picturing its transcendent loveliness, as it emanated from the plastic hand of Him who, as he looked abroad upon the world he had made, pronounced it “very good.” We dwell with delight upon the sure promise of the ultimate restoration of nature, now so marred, to more than primitive beauty and loveliness, as it bloomed when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy. Now, all is discord and confusion; then, all will be peace. Now all nature groans under the ever-increasing effects of the curse. Then, in the sweet fields of Eden, there will be no more curse. Here, death, which came in consequence of sin, reigns triumphant, severing the strongest earthly ties, causing the heart to bleed, and the tear to fall. There death no more wears the defiant look of a conqueror. He is a vanquished foe. There will be no more death; the last tear will be wiped away. There will be heard the triumphant shout, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” Weeping, sighing, and sadness, will give place to joy, joy unspeakable, and full of glory. Here, we mourn when called to part with those we dearly love. There, all the sorrows of the past will be forgotten in the ecstasy of that meeting, when with immortality clad, we greet them on Beulah's fair plains. Here, we sigh for some token of our Father's presence; there, “the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.” There “we shall be satisfied when we awake with his likeness.” How true that “day unto day uttereth speech.” May we listen to, and profit by, the rich lessons of instruction contained in that utterance.