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The man who numbers his days rightly, numbers them not as if they ended anything, but as if they began something. He thinks of them in their termination as bringing him, not to an end, but to a beginning, a beginning for which, if rightly used, they prepare and fit him. You should not look upon men and women as if they were grown, as trees which stand in their maturity plain to your sight. You should look upon them as seeds which are planted, which are hidden as yet, but which are destined to have appearance of full growth by and by. If you will only carry yourself in thought over beyond the time of what you call death; if you will only stretch your lives out endlessly, and conceive of yourselves continuing as living beings with all your present powers amplified and quickened to greater intensity of expression for ever and ever; if you will only think of yourselves as having close and emphatic connections with that which is beyond as well as that which is here — if you will only think of yourselves in this way, I say, until the next world has become as actual and impressive to your consciousness as the present world is, you will then put true measurement upon and give the true significance to time. You will then see what it is worth and what it is not worth. You will then see what it should lead to and what you cannot afford to have it lead to. And seeing this you will apply your hearts unto wisdom. Wisdom is a great word, because the idea it symbolizes is great. It is greater than knowledge, for knowledge symbolizes only what one has received. Knowledge symbolizes the accumulation of facts, the gathering and retention of information, the reception on the part of our memories of whatever has been discovered. But wisdom represents that finer power, that higher characteristic of mind, which suggests the proper application of facts, the right use of knowledge, the correct direction of our faculties. He whose heart is applied to wisdom has put himself in such a position that he can think divinely — think as God would think in his place. Have you this wisdom touching the government of your lives? Do you see your connections with eternity, with its law and its love, with its opportunities and: its occasions, with its joys and its glories? Are you living as those should live who can never stop living, who cannot even remain what they are, but must become better or worse? It is well for us that we can be taught of God. It is well that heaven has not left us in our ignorance. What would the world know of right and wrong but for God? What should we know even of ourselves but for Him? Let us, therefore, more and more accept God as our Teacher. Let us read His Holy Word with profound attention. Let us study Nature with reverent and inquisitive eyes. Let us by every method inform ourselves in respect to those great duties and obligations which deliver us from frivolity and sin.

(W. H. Murray.)

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KJV: So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

WEB: So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.