And intimates eternity to man.
Eternity, thou pleasing, dreadful thought!
Thro' what variety of untried being,
Thro' what new scenes and changes must we pass?
The wide, the unbounded prospect lies before me;
But shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it."
—Addison.
Alas! what is man? Whether he be deprived of that light which is from on high, or whether he discards it, he is a frail and trembling creature, standing on time, that bleak and narrow isthmus between two eternities; he sees nothing but impenetrable darkness on the one hand, and doubt, distrust, and conjecture still more perplexing on the other. Most gladly would he take an observation as to whence he has come, or whither he is going; alas! he has not the means; his telescope is too dim, his compass too wavering, his plummet too short; nor is that little spot, his present state, one whit more intelligible, since it may prove a quicksand that may sink in a moment from his feet. It can afford him no certain reckonings as to that immeasurable ocean on which he must soon spread his sail—an awful expedition, from which the mind shrinks from contemplating. Nor is the gloom relieved by the outfit in which the voyage must be undertaken. The bark is a coffin, the destination is doubt, and the helmsman is death. Faith alone can see the star which is to guide him to a better land.
The hour-glass is truly emblematical of the world. As its sands run out at the termination of a given period, so it shows that all things must have an end. It shows that man may devise—may even execute—but that erelong time, that restless destroyer, comes, and mows all before him, and leaves naught but a wreck, a barren waste behind him. Surely all will give credence to this who watch the daily dying of cherished hopes, of delightful anticipations. The flame burns brightly at first, but it soon fluctuates, and finally dies without restriction.