The great clock of eternity has only just begun to tick!

(George Everard, "Bright and Fair! A Book for Young Ladies" 1882)

Life is great beyond all expression, because eternity is inseparably linked to it.

If the comfort and happiness of the rest of your life depended upon the use of one day or one hour - you would be very careful to use it aright! But infinitely greater is the disproportion between our little day of life here - and the vast eternity that follows. Yet upon the one, hangs the other.

How shall we think of eternity? How shall we measure it? How shall we grasp it? How shall we get at least some faint idea of that ever-abiding, unending existence, which stretches away into the far horizon, and whose boundary we can never reach?

Take it in this way. Suppose that for every flower that blooms in summer, you count a thousand years - and add together the sum of all.

Suppose that, for every leaf that trembles in the breeze, you also count a thousand years - and then add together these two sums.

In a similar manner, for every bird or insect that flies in the air, for every living creature that treads the earth, for every fish that is found in the mighty deep - count a thousand years.

Then, if you can, add together these vast totals and imagine the time they demand, and remember that when these cycles of ages have rolled by, the great clock of eternity has only just begun to tick!

And this great eternal future hangs on this short passing life! What a reality does this give to it! What a vast importance attaches to every moment of it!

"So teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom." Psalm 90:12