Show st james asks what is thy lifee and his own answer to the question Is for ye are a apor that appear eth for a little time and then vani away the brevity of life has been the subject of deep thought and of anxious solicitude in all ages of the world the poet tells us our birth is nothing but our death begun it is likened to a a shadow a vapor a swift flying cloud or trie au dumn leaf such is life this life we are irving away this life that will so soon be over this life on wace transient breath hangs everl asti g destiny but we fall to appreciate life a meaning it we spend ir time in s ah ing over its brevity life is not mere lya vapor that presently vani it Is a journey to a fixed destination we are not only going but we are going somewhere not into the depths of a mystic solitude to be extinguished and forgotten our destiny is not an lation and nothingness to go or ward aimlessly Is the most able folly to have around him all the evidences of god and never to see theato look upon a thousand church spires that point to an eternal life and miss all their meanings to be in a land of bibles that reveals god s purposes for man s eternal des tiny and be ignorant of his own end is indeed a negligence which it is dit ficula to comprehend it is not death but life that is before us not earthly life alone but life a thread running interminably through the warp of eter anity life Is given us to be used with a view to its eternal destiny to use it so as to give the soul room tor its unfolding capacities to use it to promote the highest good to use it as to make the most of it that is to have before us a high and true ideal and the greatest hope for adv event that can folio v if we but work out our destan aceti ling to the divine purpose it cannot fail to be eternal gholi |