SELECTIONS | AdventAI

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 25, 1858

SELECTIONS.

“I Mark only the Hours that Shine.”

THERE is a sun-dial in Italy, with the above inscription upon it. It strikes us as a happy one, and quite suggestive. Well would it be if the children of men more generally did, what the sun-dial does; but they do just the contrary. Instead of “marking the hours that shine,” they mark those that do not shine; instead of noting the pleasant days, those of prosperity, they note the unpleasant, those of adversity; instead of enumerating their mercies, they count and dwell upon their trials; they look upon the dark side of life, not upon the bright side. And what is the consequence! Just what we should suppose it would be. Instead of being grateful, contented and cheerful, they are querulous, restless and sad.

We are not as when we were originally created, in a state of innocence. We are sinners. As such, we are treated much better than we deserve.—“Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins? It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.” Instead of complaining at the evils which fall to our lot, those aches, pains, disappointments, and troubles which are inseparable from lapsed humanity, which others have suffered before us, and are suffering in common with us, for every heart knoweth its own bitterness, and “in Adam's fall, we sinned all,” we should compare our afflictions with our guilt, think of many good things, which, notwithstanding this guilt, we are permitted to enjoy, think of that better world where sorrow is unknown, “a long eternity of bliss,” prepare for it, and anticipate it, and, “mark the hours that shine.”