THE sunset is the sheaf of the day’s activities, wherein are bound all the roses and poppies and fruits and grains of the passing hours, for the experiences of life are constantly coming to full harvest. Weary with toil and worn with watching, we do not see the riches of to-day; or, stirred by some new ambition, our eyes become so fixed upon the future, that to-day’s golden grain is trampled under foot and lost. Instead of facing the morrow’s morn, rich with garnered treasures, we greet it with empty hands. We are not householders seeking strong-walled dwellings and broad, extending acres, but are careless, nomadic folk, wandering aimlessly from day to day, as gypsies wander from town to town. Having all things within our grasp, we possess nothing. When touched by the hand of Death, and taken out of life, the world is no more disturbed than by the bursting of a bubble on the ocean wave.
Sunsets are sheaves, and the brilliancy of their coloring is God’s way of calling our attention to their value. The waving of so many golden and scarlet banners, by a myriad of unseen hands, should awaken the most careless soul to the consciousness that something mighty is transpiring. Such banners and pageantry passing through our streets would awaken the entire city to wonderment and concern. For what king are the banners waving? For what worthy cause are all these ensigns thrown upon the wind? What victory is celebrated here? Yet the sunsets pass unheeded, and the golden sheaf of another day is trampled under careless feet, and left to mildew and decay.
The art of gathering sunsets, the grasping of each day’s experiences with firm and constant hold, is one to covet. Days are not something to “pass through.” Each day is like unto an acre of land, through which one may hurry, as in a train, without thought of right or ownership; or unto an acre of land which he holds in perpetual ownership, adding that much to his estate, and increasing his income through all the days that follow. Rather, it is a sheaf of grain, supplying food and affording strength for an ever-increasing work which he may throw away, or keep for future use. Sunset time is harvest time, and the evening hour is the one in which to fill full the granaries and treasure chests for days unborn. Sunsets should be bound with the golden cords of memory and kept forever.
The pathway of life grows brightest for those who have wasted fewest of their yesterdays. Hours well spent and safely garnered never lose the brightness of their sunshine. It always glows in the sparkle of the eye, in the brightness of a winning smile, in the warm atmosphere of helpfulness with which they are surrounded. Hours spent in sin and dissipation have no luster to cast upon the afterdays, but goodness is always luminous. Hours of right-living may be likened to blazing suns that never cease to glow. The ability to retain their brightness means an ever-increasing splendor of life. It is this that the inspired writer must have had in mind when he wrote that the pathway of the just is as a shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.
The secret of perfection along any line of endeavor is the gathering in and retaining the good, at the same time sorting out and permanently eliminating that which is bad. It is a work of patience and progression. It requires the fruitage of many days, the garnered glories of many sunsets, to endow one with the riches of genius; and not one single day should be lost. The lapidist, whose magic touch changes pebbles into glittering jewels to adorn the neck of beauty; the sculptor, whose mallet-stroke is so accurate that rough, ill-shapen stones become forms of grace to inspire the generations; the artist, whose brush quickens the common dust and clay into marvelous paintings of unfading color and undying sentiment; the botanist, whose carefulness transforms barren waysides into gardens, and the desert places into banqueting halls; the metallurgist, whose powerful hand takes the knotted lumps of ore and fashions them into the bronze doors of a great cathedral—all these represent that priceless frugality that will not permit a sunset to escape. Their first crude efforts were sheaves of rich experiences, which they garnered and stored away in the treasure chests of memory. They had the bright light of their first sunsets to add to the morning light of their second endeavors. They continued to store the brightness of the passing experiences. Day by day the light grew brighter, until at last there came the perfect day, when the whole world stood amazed at the perfection of their handiwork. The loss of one sunset would have faded the light and dimmed the glory of their final achievement. All perfect art is but gathered sunsets.
This law holds in the matter of spiritual perfection. God does much for us at conversion, when, through faith in him, we are changed by his grace into new men and new women. It is like a lost planet finding its central sun, and resuming its accustomed place, and finding light, and warmth, and life, and joy again. Wonderful indeed is the power of God as manifested in the conversion of any individual, but conversion is not perfection. Perfection is something that the inspired writer urges us “to go unto.” “And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.”
Do not permit the colors of triumph to fade from your first day’s sky. Hold on to that sunset. Each day will furnish its added beam of light. Faith, hope, and love, and all the Christian graces will become more beautiful for you, to you, and in you. The pathway will become brighter and brighter. Life will have fewer shadows because the light falls upon you from so many angles and becomes more perfectly diffused. To-morrow can have no hindering uncertainties, for the light of the past experiences illumines the future. There is light for every darkened corner, and one may rejoice that all things are working together for good, because we do love God. Gathered sunsets make life’s trail ablaze with light.
Let no to-day become yesterday, except in the calendar, as we reckon time. Each day must become part of us as we live in an ever-present now. The same alphabet we learned in childhood is ours to-day. Because we did not forget it with the setting of the sun, it served us to-day as we spell out, in polysyllables, a newly discovered truth. The alphabet did not fade with the death of the day we learned it, so that it is now part of our lives. As we cannot think apart from the words we learned long ago; and as we cannot calculate, save as we use the first-learned characters from one to ten; so, in the developing of the soul, we must not lose one single hour of prayer or inspiration of a noble purpose.
Both building and growing are alike in this—they are processes of “adding to.” Brick added to brick and timber added to timber means a stately building. Cell added to cell means growth of body and increase in stature. But handling brick is not enough, they must be placed with a purpose and kept firmly fixed in the place desired. The brick of yesterday must be where it can have added to it the brick of to-day. Physical growth depends upon the keeping the cells of yesterday for a foundation upon which to build the cells of to-day. Christian living is similar. We build a character and grow a soul but the process is the same, with both character and soul. We gain by adding to. Therefore we must not permit any of our sunsets to fade away. All that we have gained through prayer and Christian service must be held to brighten each new morn. The spiritual victory over temptation, the answer to our intercessory prayers, the moment of spiritual illumination as we read the Bible, all these are priceless experiences upon which to add the newer conquests of to-day. We must not permit the disease of sin to sap our vitality and destroy the growth of yesterday. We must guard our spiritual health that we may grow. This is what Christ meant when he said: “Men ought always to pray.” The culture of the soul is an eternal process. Days must not pass; they must remain as part of our own selves.