The Light of Evening
Zechariah 14:7
But it shall be one day which shall be known to the LORD, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass…


Evening is the time for stillness, and low, quiet tones, and communion with things and persons far away. So deep is the peace, so sweet the refreshment of that hour to one who, having done his work as a true man, may rest with a good conscience. Enlarge the range of view. Such as is the evening hour after a day of honest toil, such ought to be the latter years in every good man's life. As comes the evening to each mortal day, so comes an evening, at last, to all our days together; and with it the evening light, better far than the growing brilliancy of the early hours, or the set glare of the noonday sun. When the day of life has been a good and useful day, not idly spent or wasted, but passed in the fear of God, in piety and honesty, and in the performance of duty, then must its ending be calm and still.

1. In what does the light of the evening hour consist? In the evening of life comes the final and distinct realisation of the little value of this world. A true man outgrows, step by step, what he was; at last, if he live long enough, he outgrows the world.

2. To pass from this life to that in front, will be to go from ignorance and imperfection unto a wider knowledge and a deeper wisdom. The evening brings the time when the servant of God shall see and know many of the secrets of the universe, and read through and through what had long been dark mysteries to him. How many things there are which we do not understand!

3. It must bring great peace at last, to look back upon the life, and consider its moral and its lesson. One thing comes clearer and clearer out; the steady, never failing presence and providence of God.

4. Many have feared lest they might, somehow, lose their faith. That is the darkest of all spectres to a Christian. How blessed then to know at last that, whatever mistakes are made, whatever sins are committed, we are saved from that gravest error, that heaviest and most hopeless sin, the denial of the Catholic faith.

(Morgan Dix.)



Parallel Verses
KJV: But it shall be one day which shall be known to the LORD, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light.

WEB: It will be a unique day which is known to Yahweh; not day, and not night; but it will come to pass, that at evening time there will be light.




Lux E Tenebris
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