All our days are passed away in thy wrath: we append our years as a tale that is told. Psalms 90:9. But they counted our life a pastime, and our time here a market for gain: for, say they, we must be getting every way, though it be by evil means. All those things are passed away like a shadow, and as a post that hasteth by, and as a ship that passeth over the waves of the water, which, when it is gone by, the trace thereof cannot be found, neither the pathway of the keel in the waves. Wisdom of Solomon 15:12. Wisdom of Solomon 5:9-11.
The whole life of many people is nothing else but sporting, playing, dancing, and running for temporal things, as in a fair. God strikes and visits them with poverty, sickness, and national judgments. But who knows and believes the power of his anger? Consider, O man! the dreadful eternity, and make haste to repent, that nothing worse may come upon thee. No wonder that even the children of God are chastised and deprived of their comfort, if they are distracted with many things. May the Lord keep me always closely united to himself, and make me wise and diligent in laying up something for eternity.
Can laughter feed the immortal mind?
Were spirits of celestial kind
Made for a jest, for sport and play,
To wear out time and waste the day?
Lord, raise our hearts and passions higher,
Touch our vain souls with sacred fire;
Then, with an elevated eye,
We’ll pass these glittering trifles by.
We’ll look on all the toys below,
With such disdain as angels do,
And wait the call that bids us rise
To promised mansions in the skies.