Wasted Lives by J. A. Dayton

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 16, 1864

Wasted Lives.

By J. A. Dayton

How many thousands since first in Eden the enemy of mankind began his evil work, as they have taken a retrospective view of their threescore years and ten, have felt in bitterness of soul to mourn over the loss of a lifetime, and the language of their hearts has been, Oh that I could live it over again! And as memory brings before them the long array of blasted hopes, vain desires, and hours, weeks, and even years gone forever into eternity, bearing with them their sure record of neglect and broken resolutions, oh how gladly would they blot it from her page and leave in its stead a blank.

How many more who, ere they measure half their allotted time, wrecked upon the ocean of life, misguided from the outset, satiated with folly, disgusted with themselves and with their fellow-men, without hope and without God in the world, awake at last only to find their sands of life are almost gone and not one golden one remains.

Restless, fickle, changing as the summer cloud, has been their course, desires born of earth have lured them from the higher faith where virtue beckons steadily onward to the goal, where holy ambition is satisfied with fullness of joy.

And this is the history of thousands! Yet human nature is prone to believe that could some fairy hand renew their youth and leave the wisdom gained by experience still in their possession, they would lead a wiser, better life. It may be so, but alas! how many do we see instead of turning such experience to advantage for the future, sit supinely down, brooding over disappointed hopes and making for themselves a still more wretched lot.

Regret cannot bring back the past, but it may teach us wisdom, and enable us to use aright the brief day that is left us to prepare for the enjoyment of a life of infinitely greater value than that we mourn as wasted, and which if wasted is indeed a loss. We cannot hope for anything beyond it in which to retrieve our errors; for it is measured by the rounds of eternity. Behind us is a moment. A moment now is ours, and before us, oh stupendous thought! an eternal life of bliss.

Reader, will you leave it all untasted and linger still to feed upon the husks afforded here? Can you think of the heavenly glories of that better land, of its angelic music, of the eternal joys, of the rest, the freedom, and the peace, of the home of light, and love, and beauty, and not feel an ardent, longing desire to share in its joys? Oh, let a holy ambition chase away despair. Give it but a place within your breast, and the dark clouds of melancholy will vanish before it like dew before the morning sun. Rouse every energy to the work, and brood no longer over the useless past. Heaven is before you with its untold delight, fear not to let anticipation cheer you on the way, for a blessed realization will exceed it all; the past is no longer yours. The future will be what you make it.

“This world can never give The bliss for which we sigh. Its fairest glories shortest live, And all its pleasures die.

“Beyond this vale of tears There is a life above, Unmeasured by the flight of years, And all that life is love.”

J. A. DAYTON.

Chesaning, Mich.