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Otago Witness, Issue 1805, 25 June 1886, Page 28

ETEENIT Y.— B T B RNI TV ! ETERNITY!!— Vain were it for the fiuite mind of mortal to fathom the boundless, impenetrable depths of Eternity — vainer still were, the effort to attempt to convey in words the faintest idea of its vast and illimitable duration. The mind recoils from the task, oppressed with the feeling of the overwhelming impossibility of even attempting to grasp the subject, or to pen any adequate representation of its never-ending periods. Futile were it to express any conception of the subject by comparison with finite time, for its most lengthened ages are but as minute inappreciable points in Eternity's tremendous range. (The number of of seconds which have elapsed since the creation of Adam to the present time is less than the fifth part of a billion.)

Let a period be imagined consisting of a 100,000,000,000,000,000 years, each one of which years is of a duration equal to a hundred thousand of our years, a very proloiujprl period is indicated. Now imagine a line of those figures to he coutiuued to the most distant visiable star, •md then back again to the earth, and each one of those years to be equal to a thousand millions of our years — yet when the very last of these awe-inspiring jeons has been reached, the end of Eternity is no nearer than ifc was at the commencement ; no, not even when those tremendous cycles have, been repeated in countless succession, still Eternity goes on — on — on ! If such, then, be Eternity, what is our life ? It is even as a vapour which passeth away. The more this subject is considered, the more weak, and insignificant, and little does everything connected with mortality appear; the more one contemplates it, so much the more infinite and overpowering and stupendous does its illimitable duration appear. If a man were told by some powerful potentate, whose word he could not doubt, that if he consented to perform a certain easy task during one hour only, the entire remainder of his life should be passed in the enjoyment of unlimited riches and pleasure, but that if he refused to do that easy ta&k he should be confined in a dungeon, and be tormented with horrible tortures during the entire remainder of his existence, would not that man apply himself with the most eager assiduity and determined earnestness to perform that task, even if. instead of being an easy ta.-.lc. it wore one involving hardship and pain? How senseles«; then, does the folly of those appear who, refusing to take upon them fehe easy yoke of the Lord, incur the certain risk of receiving far greater punishment than it would be in the power of any earthly potentate to inflict, while had they enrolled themselves under Christ's banner, they would win that glorious reward — the Kingdom of Heaven.

How, then, is that Kingdom of Heaven to be gained ? For the reply to that unutterably momentous question we must turn to the revealed Word of God, and there we trace in the following sentence, the key-note of the whole of Holy Writ :—

" For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."— John hi., 16.

The subject referred to in this text is the most sublime and glorious that it is possible for the mind either of man or of angels to conceive. It is a subject which overpowers the intellect, and which must be of far greater moment than any other event which has ever happened throughout all Eternity. We are taught by this text, and by many others in the Holy Word of God, that the Lord Jesus Christ, tho eternal Son of Almighty God, the King of kings, aud.