V
THE RHYTHM OF LIFE
In the third chapter of the Book of Ecclesiastes occur some verses which have suggested the subject of this talk. They illustrate a certain balance or rhythm in nature and in life.
“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven;
“A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
“A time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance.”
These words are used by the author, not so much to illustrate the rhythm of life as its monotony. He is not admiring the wonderful harmony which meets us in nature wherever we turn, so much as he is lamenting that there is nothing new in nature or in human life. The same things recur over and over again. The sun rises in the morning only to go down again in the evening, and the same process will be repeated through endless to-morrows. “The rivers all run into the sea, yet the sea is not full.” “That which hath been is what shall be.” Man is born, laughs and labors and weeps, and when his little life is ended, dies. This has been the history of countless multitudes and it will be the history of countless multitudes to come. There is nothing new under the sun.
Written as this book was at the darkest hour of Hebrew history, at a time of oppression and unrest, it is a sad book. The writer, a serious and earnest-minded man, strives nobly to discover light for himself and his race, but the world looks dark. Yet he is a brave and devout soul, and his book, so full of stimulus to high endeavor, ought to be read more widely than it is.
The words I have quoted may well start several different trains of thought. One of these I will suggest. There is nothing new under the sun, it is true; but we do not need anything new. The same old things we have always had are just what we need and shall always need; as springtime and harvest, day and night, work and rest. In the regular recurrence of these great and necessary things is found the rhythm of life in accordance with which we live and must live. May we learn something from nature’s ways that will help us to make our lives strong? I think so.
Have you ever thought of rhythm in nature? Here there is no monotony, but constant and beneficent change. Nothing, perhaps, is quite so blessed as the sunshine, yet eternal day would be almost as bad as eternal night. How our tired eyes would long for the calm and restful darkness! We love the springtime and the warm days and the green growing things; but how much more we love them because they follow cold and snow, leafless trees and bare earth!
Nowhere do we find the rhythm of nature better illustrated than in our bodies, these wonderful machines only partially under our control. Sleeping and waking, the contraction and extension of the muscles, the inhalation and exhalation of the breath are a few of the many examples. The most important of all the activities of the body, the systole and diastole of the heart, Nature keeps within her own control, and gives alternate work and rest to that vital organ, as if to say that when it comes to a matter of life and death, man cannot be trusted to his own keeping. Fortunate it is that this is so, for if it rested with us to decide when they should work and when rest, some eager, ambitious hearts would beat themselves to death ere life had well begun.