Once in a venerable manor-house, at the head of the carved oak stairway, stood an old clock. About half a minute before it struck it made a curious, buzzing, whirring sound. Then all the children of the house said, "Ah! the old clock is warning"; and upstairs they ran to see the clock strike. The clock told them beforehand what it was going to do.
Now, brethren, there is a clock that has gone on warning and striking for many a century, and that clock is called "the Church's Year." It was wound up last Advent, and since then it has struck Christmas, it has struck Epiphany, it has struck St. Paul's Day, it has struck Easter, Pentecost, Assumption, All Saints and All Souls. To-day it has nearly run down; it is warning for next Sunday, when it will strike Advent again.
The Church, next Sunday, will bring you face to face with judgment. To-day she warns you that the great season of Advent is coming once more; that the old year is passing, that the new one is about to begin. So, then, brethren, before the clock strikes for judgment, before time is dead, while life and grace and opportunities still remain, take up your stand before the old clock; look at the hours depicted on the dial, and ask yourself how you spent last year, how you would be prepared if judgment should come to you a week hence.
Listen! How merrily that chime rings. You heard it about a year ago. It was the Church clock striking Christmas. Where were you then? Some of you, we know, were where you should be—at holy Mass, receiving Holy Communion at the altar-rail. You heard the organ pealing and the choir singing Adeste fideles; you saw the little Infant Jesus in the crib, and the bright evergreens decking the church, and felt in your hearts that indeed there was peace on earth. Happy you if it was thus. But alas! was it so? Were you not away from Mass last Christmas? Were you not neglecting your religion? Were you not in mortal sin? Were you not revelling, getting drunk, thinking rather of feasting and enjoying yourselves than of devotion and thanksgiving?
Then the hour of Epiphany struck! What gifts had you to bring to the manger-bed? Had you the gold of Christian charity to present? Had you the incense of faith and the myrrh of sweet and fragrant hope? Ah! it is to be feared that some knelt not at the manger-bed of Jesus, but on the brink of hell: forgetting God, scandalizing their neighbor, damning their own souls. On the "Feast of Light" (as the Epiphany is sometimes called) some were kneeling at the shrine of the world and '"holding the candle to the devil." Didn't you hear the pendulum of the old clock ticking, ticking, and seeming to say, as it swung: "Behold! I have told you beforehand! Behold! I have told you beforehand!" Why, then, did you not do penance?
Then came Lent; and on the first Sunday of that holy time the clock warned loud and clear for Easter. A voice almost seemed to be heard shouting in your ears: "Easter-duty! Easter-duty! 'Time and tide wait for no man!'" And so at last the clock struck. Easter had passed. You had been "told beforehand." You did not heed, and thus, oh! listen heaven, and listen hell, another Easter-duty was missed, and another mortal sin committed.
To-day, dear friends, the Church clock warns you again. The Church herself cries to you to cast "off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light." Give ear, then, while there is yet life and hope. Have you been negligent? "Better late than never"; now is the time to mend. Have you been a drunkard? Now "be sober and watch." Have you neglected your children? Begin to care for them as you should. Have you neglected the sacraments? Come, prepare at once to receive them worthily. Whatever your state may be, remember—judgment is coming; death is at hand! Maybe God's clock in heaven already points, for you, at the last hour; maybe this is the last time that you will be warned, and then the clock will strike and you will be in eternity. Time and tide are rushing on. Every tick of the clock brings you nearer heaven or nearer hell. Oh! then prepare yourself for the great day, that so when time is dead and gone; when the great clock strikes for the last time, you may be found ready, and go in with Jesus to his marriage feast.
Rev. Algernon A. Brown.