Richard L. Evans
The Spoken Word
1 January 1961

THE PRESENT FOREVER FACES THE FUTURE

“The town clock is striking midnight. The cold of the night wind is urging its way in at the door and window-crevice; the fire has sunk almost to the third bar of the grate. Still my dream tires not, … Love has blended into reverence; passion has subsided into joyous content. And what if age comes, … What else gives inner strength, and knowledge, and a steady pilot-hand, to steer … out boldly upon that shoreless sea, where the river of life is running?” ((Donald Grant Mitchell, “Reveries of a Bachelor,” 1851.))

These Reveries written more than a century ago suggest a mood of much meaning. The river of life is running. And how short is the run into eternity! And how swiftly the present becomes the past, as our lives are lived between memories and unknown events— as the present forever faces both past and future!

“If I were dying,” said Justice Holmes, “my last words would be: have faith and pursue the unknown end. … There must be a drift, if one will go prepared and have patience, which will bring one out to daylight and a worthy end … one is safe in trusting to courage and to time.”

All this adds up to a kind of thoughtfulness, with some looking back, but not too much brooding. “Let us correct our errors forward, not backward.”

The past is only good for what we have learned from it, the present for what we do with it, and the future is for faith— and the fact that we have come through all the past with the help of Providence, with a loving Father’s mindfulness for us, is the best reason for faith in facing the future, with the love of loved ones, of family, of friends, with a humble wonder of the world, with repentance and a reappraisal of things that mean the most— and an awareness that there is an overruling Providence and Power, and purpose, which purpose will prevail. Thus may we “trust to courage and to time”— “have faith and pursue the unknown end” — and gratefully go forward into another year that God has given.