THE CHURCH CALENDAR, HELP AGAINST TIME. BY THE REV. FREDERICK W. FABER, M.A. FELLOW OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, OXFORD. He made the moon also to serve in her season for a declaration of times and a sign of the world. From the moon is the sign of feasts. The month is called after her name, increasing wonderfully in her changing, being an instrument of the armies above.-ECCLUS. xliii. 6. LONDON: PRINTED FOR J. G. F. & J. RIVINGTON, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD, AND WATERLOO PLACE, PALL MALL. 1840. Price Threepence. THE CHURCH CALENDAR, A HELP AGAINST TIME. THERE are many days in a year; and in every one of them we are all of us thinking and saying either how quick the time passes or how slow. Those who are engaged in business, and have almost more to do every day than one day will hold, are continually complaining how quick the time passes: those who are idle, languid, useless people, who are weak enough and ignorant enough to believe they have nothing to do but to amuse themselves, are continually complaining how slow the time passes. Again: those who are in strong bodily health, and are from that in good spirits and cheerfulness, wonder at the quiet way in which time runs past them, like a summer stream that makes no noise in its going; but those whom age or sickness has confined to their weary chambers, who lie awake all night, in pain and fretfulness, listening to the different hours as they come heavily one after another, and murmuring for the day, these are miserable because time goes so sluggishly. When we are looking forward to any pleasure or enjoyment, we are eager for the time to pass away quickly; and, in like manner, when we are in sorrow and suffering, we are equally anxious for the rapid flight of time. So, too, there is scarcely a day in which parents do not teach their children, and masters their scholars, and friends warn their friends, and the Church warns all men, not to lose their time, because it passes away. Thus we are for ever thinking about time, speaking about time, and acting with reference to time. And as the Church calendar was invented of old to help us against time, it may not be unpractical to ask ourselves a question-simple, indeed, to all appearance, yet by no means easy to answerWhat is time? What is the meaning of this word that is always in our mouths? What is this strange power, or economy, or tyrant, or whatsoever it be, which, like the air we breathe, insinuates itself into all our thoughts and actions, makes itself felt every where, and felt as a hard master over us? What is time? Think of it as we will, place it in whatever light we will, there is but one answer to the question-It is a mystery. Now, let no one think that this is a mere matter of speculation, a question, curious and interesting, but not affecting our practice. If it be true that time is so continually in our thought, it must be practical to get some true notions about it, and to give it a religious meaning. We shall then be more strongly impressed with the recollection that it is one of the most fearful of those talents for which we shall have to give account at the judgmentseat of Christ; and also when we begin to see what time is, we shall be more anxious to take refuge from its tyranny, its unreality, and its changings in the fulness and the substance of eternity. Time is not a reality, because it is not and it cannot be eternal. It would be a contradiction to say it was. We may talk of past, present, and future. To us they may seem widely different things, though they are not really so: |