To him, then, the night would surely mean this mortal life on earth.  The day would mean the immortal life to come.

For is not this mortal life, compared with that life to come, as night compared with day?  I do not mean to speak evil of it.  God forbid that we should do anything but thank God for this life.  God forbid that we should say impiously to Him, Why hast thou made me thus?  No.  God made this mortal life, and therefore, like all things which He has made, it is very good.  But there are good nights, and there are bad nights; and there are happy lives, and unhappy ones.  But what are they at best?  What is the life of the happiest man without the Holy Spirit of God?  A night full of pleasant dreams.  What is the life of the wisest man?  A night of darkness, through which he gropes his way by lanthorn-light, slowly, and with many mistakes and stumbles.  When we compare man’s vast capabilities with his small deeds; when we think how much he might know,—­how little he does know in this mortal life,—­can we wonder that the highest spirits in every age have looked on death as a deliverance out of darkness and a dungeon?  And if this is life at the best, what is life at the worst?  To how many is life a night, not of peace and rest, but of tossing and weariness, pain and sickness, anxiety and misery, till they are ready to cry, When will it be over?  When will kind Death come and give me rest?  When will the night of this life be spent, and the day of God arise?  ’Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.  Lord, hear my voice.  My soul doth wait for the Lord, more than the sick man who watches for the morning.’

Yes, think,—­for it is good at times, however happy one may be oneself, to think—­of all the misery and sorrow that there is on earth, and how many there are who would be glad to hear that it was nearly over; glad to hear that the night was far spent, and the day was at hand.

And even the happiest ought to ‘know the time.’  To know that the night is far spent, and the day at hand.  To know, too, that the night at best was not given us, to sleep it all through, from sunset to sunrise.  No industrious man does that.  Either he works after sunset, and often on through the long hours, and into the short hours, before he goes to rest:  or else he rises before daybreak, and gets ready for the labours of the coming day.  The latter no man can do in this life.  For we all sleep away, more or less, the beginning of our life, in the time of childhood.  There is no sin in that—­God seems to have ordained that so it should be.  But, to sleep away our manhood likewise,—­is there no sin in that?  As we grow older, must we not awake out of sleep, and set to work, to be ready for the day of God which will dawn on us when we pass out of this mortal life into the world to come?

As we grow older, and as we get our share of the cares, troubles, experiences of life, it is high time to wake out of sleep, and ask Christ to give us light—­light enough to see our way through the night of this life, till the everlasting day shall dawn.