The Wisest Arithmetic by Alexander
Smiley from The Secret Place, 1907 Teach us to number our days right,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Psalm 90 verse 12. I number my days aright when
I feel their fewness. To the imagination of the young,
life seems long. They catch no echo of the roar
of the waves of eternity as they dash on the shores of time, so
far away those shores appear to be. But the farther I advance
in age, the more swiftly and imperceptibly the hours and weeks
and years steal on. At the outset of the voyage I
mark my progress by the objects on the riverbanks—trees, houses,
towering hills—but later I have left the river and am on the
trackless sea, and the sea remorselessly impels me on. Soon I shall hear
the cry, Land ahead! and my voyage of life Will be
finished and passed. I number my days aright When
I recall their uncertainty. Often they are abruptly broken
Before they have attained their bound. Lord, spare the green,
and take the ripe, is a cry often sounded, but the cry is not always
answered, and the child, as well as the parent, is laid in the
churchyard grave. Let me remember how brittle my
years are, and let me seize hold upon eternal realities which
cannot be shaken. I number my days aright also
if I compare them with the unchangeableness of God. The world watches the
generations come and go, but God is without beginning, and
the millenniums have left Him unhurt by the tooth of time. how paltry my fourscore winters
seem in the light of his unending ages. Yes, but let me turn to
him, let me cast myself on the everlasting arms, and the enduringness
of my God will pass into my frailty and littleness. And I number
my days aright if I think of them in relation to the limitless
future. In one sense, I am easily robbed
of them. In another sense, my years will
come to no conclusion at all. As short as they are, they prelude
an unimaginable, deathless existence. Now I'm laying the foundations
of an eternal palace, or of an eternal prison, from which I
shall never leave. Now I'm molding for myself a
king's unfading crown, or a criminal's inexorable chain. And since such
momentous outcomes hang on the slender thread of my fleeting
days, Let me live as one about to migrate to the eternal world
and let me be diligent in my father's business. This is indeed
the wisest arithmetic. you