Yet here he stands, amid his life’s evening shadows, and declares that his sublimest work lies yet ahead of him, that he has not yet attained his life’s goal, that his best has not yet been reached. “I care nothing for anything in my past,” he says; ” it does not satisfy me. It is not worth counting. Old and broken though I am, hemmed in, too, by these oppressive limitations, these walls, these chains–yet I am not at the end of my life! An unquenchable hope lives in my heart, and the star of my life shines far onward.”
So we see him there, in the thickening shadows of life’s evening-time, in the mists of gathering twilight–weary, worn, wearing chains–but still full of hope, still straining every energy, still reaching forward; still forgetting the past, still drawn irresistibly on toward some great aim, some glorious goal which lies beyond, unseen by mortal eyes. At length, night falls upon the vanishing form; it passes out of our sight; we see the old man going at last to a martyr’s death. But his eyes are yet fixed on something bright and glorious beyond! In the last words we catch from his lips, he speaks of a crown laid up for him. The last glimpse of him we have, with white locks tossed by the wind, with eyes fixed steadily and intently upon the Beyond, he is still pressing on!
The secret was this: he had in his eyes a distinct and definite future; a future not bounded by death’s horizon–but running on into eternity! Immortality was real to him. No runner in a race ever saw goal or garland more vividly–than this glorious, eagle-eyed man saw the end of his course, the goal of his life! Nor was it any earthly vision that drew him on; had it been, hope would have been dead in his heart in the broken years of his old age. He saw life sweeping on through death and beyond it–and so he looked forward to the future, when he would reach his loftiest attainments. Nothing good, beautiful, true, or real–would end for him at the grave.
What were the things which were ahead, for that old apostle there in his prison? Nothing very bright, the man of the world would say. A few days of chains and dungeon-life, then the axe, and then a grave!
But ahead of the aged Christian man–there are far more blessed things–than the best he has left behind him.”
For the Christian, the future always look bright if he looks far enough ahead—the best is yet to come!
