PROBATION by Joseph Clarke

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 16, 1888

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 14, No. 44.

PROBATION.

By Joseph Clarke

OUR first parents were perfectly happy in their Eden home, and might, with all their posterity, have been there still, in the enjoyment of all that is pure and holy, if they had appreciated the importance of that one word, "probation."

Webster defines probation thus: "The act of proving." God was proving Adam and Eve; but having failed in this their first probation, they were placed on probation again; and we all believe that our first parents knew full well the value of such an opportunity, and let us hope they improved it. But few of their posterity valued probation; they believed the world to be their own, and in a few centuries had so far forgotten its value that they provoked the Lord, who gave them this precious boon, to destroy them by a flood.

So it has been all the way down the ages of time. The regularity of the seasons, and the exact movements of the heavenly bodies, and the greatness of God's works, tempt men to think that he will not care how so insignificant a creature as man shall conduct his course. He believes that amid the multiplicity and magnitude of God's affairs, he will not notice how carelessly man may walk.

Probation signifies to us eternity of life or of death; it means a life of infinite glory and excellence beyond the eras of time; a life with God, and the good of all ages, and the companionship of angels, and an acquaintance with all of Jehovah's works. Dear to us are the joys of friendship and home, but far dearer to us should be the moments as they fly rapidly into the dim regions of the past, never to be recalled. Swifter than an arrow, and unrelenting as death, is the passage of time. No wealth or influence can recall the past. The past, if only yesterday, is a matter of history; the present is probation; the future is prophecy.

Dear reader, let us so value the present that its history may be written by our recording angels with tears of joy; and thus let us press into the present all we can of usefulness and devotion to the cause. Then shall our future light up with a radiance heavenly and divine. "Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation." JOSEPH CLARKE.