ETERNITY by N. W. Vincent

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 31, 1878

ETERNITY

By N. W. Vincent

O vast Eternity! how little understood! Duration’s deep, unbounded sea, the lifetime of our God!

Year after year shall bring its seasons, one by one:— A thousand thousand fleeting years—the scene is just begun!

The centuries shall roll their stately numbers on, A million million centuries, Eternity’s fresh dawn!

Millenniums shall wheel with solemn jubilee, Their vigintillion cycles run—noon of eternity!

Fixed periods like these all steadily shall pass, As many as earth’s forest trees or tiny blades of grass;

These ages past our thoughts may now be multiplied By what would be the drops if all the sea were dried;

Then by such number high, whose figures would o’erspread As well the orbs beyond the sky as this on which we tread.

This wondrous lapse of time now multiply once more By what the seconds represent in cycles named before.

Think ye whose minds can grasp these thoughts with steady brain, That this eternity is filled with sin, and woe, and pain?

That He who worlds can frame, whose skill divine we trace, Yields this creation to a stain which he cannot erase?

That God whose heart is love—supreme his praises be— Sees millions from his throne above writhing eternally?

Or will the chaff be burned, God’s ground from tares made free, The earth to paradise be turned, a joy eternally?

So shall eternity with gladsome hope be bright; In God’s deep love no change shall be: his ways are true and right.

N. W. VINCENT.

Thayer, Kansas.