ule it rises to a certain point, and then comes down to a
certain point, then turns again and comes up. It is a perfectly balanced
wheel, making its revolution steadily, steadily. I did not fix those
revolutions: the great Architect did! He knows how many the wheel itself
can perform; He knows what each revolution marks off and what it
accomplishes, and He knows too how many shall measure off my thread of
life. I do not know the number, you do not know; but this we do know, it
is marked upon the dial, and we are tolerably sure it is not more than
threescore and ten. Suppose you saw the dial of life before your eye as
plain as that dial is and the hand pointing twenty, thirty, forty, fifty
of the divisions gone--gone never to return! Suppose you felt that that
hand was pressing forward and would point and point to successive lines
till at last, without a moment's warning, the hour will strike and it is
over, no recall! Man of twenty, proud of thy youth! man of fifty, proud
of thy maturity! man of seventy, proud of thy years! are you prepared to
meet your God? Has your time been spent with a view to eternity? Has
the measure of your days been taken? Has the course of your years been
run in holiness? If not, by the deep voice of the heavens above thee;
that voice which evermore is speaking; by the night and the day, and the
season and the year, I charge thee prepare to meet thy God. For thy time
is passing and eternity at hand.

"Thy years shall not fail." The thought of man never feels that it can
say this to nature. He sees the stones themselves have marks of age and
decay--the very mountains, the very seas tell of change and limit. And
in the skies too far off for us to trace decay we trace something
else--measure. Everything is measured. The moon goes by measure and the
sun by measure, and the way of the stars is all measured. There are
clear tokens that not one of them is its own master or gives its own law.
One government moulds them all. They say "We serve." I take up the
blade of grass and at once feel He that made that grass made the light of
day, the dew of the morning, the beast that feeds upon it. One law
pervades them all. I take up the corn. He that made that made the sun
that ripens it and the soil that fattens it, and my blood that is my
life. Everywhere is one mind, one plan, one hand, one sceptre, and all
nature says "I serve, I serve. There is a force external to myself. I
am mea