IT is related by Herodotus, in ancient Greek history, that the great King Xerxes having planned the invasion of Greece, started out with a vast army, and having reached the Dardanelles, managed to affect a crossing at a certain point, he mounted a high hill where he sat upon a throne of marble and surveyed the scene. It was a wonderful sight; the Dardanelles was covered with ships, and all its shores and the plain of Abydos were full of men. The king after having pronounced himself a happy man to have so far realized his hopes, afterward fell to weeping; his uncle, seeing this, and failing to understand the sudden change that had taken place, inquired the cause, to which Xerxes replied, “After I had reckoned up, it came into my mind to feel pity at the thought of how brief was the whole life of man, seeing that of all these multitudes not one will be alive when a hundred years have gone by”.
How true! in a hundred years both reader and writer will have passed away; but who can tell what may have happened before this present year has reached its end? Ere one hundred days have passed away death may have laid its icy hand upon you, dear reader. If it came upon you, how would it find you: in your sins or through God’s rich grace free from them? Would it find you ready to “depart and be with Christ”, or unprepared, with a lifetime of sins upon you, and nothing but the judgment of God after death?
Death is the great leveler; it brings all down to one common platform; king and subject, prince and people, high and low, rich and poor. It is no respecter of persons, all must obey its summons; thousands die daily; your turn must come at last; can you look it full in the face and say like Paul, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ”