III.

THE BIOGRAPHY OF ENOCH;

OR,

A GLORIOUS LIFE AND A GLORIOUS END.

"And Enoch walked with God; and he was not; for God took him."

GEN. v. 24.

THE patriarchs before the deluge lived to a very great age; their years were numbered not by scores, but by hundreds; at the period when men among us are in the decline of life, they were still in the bloom of their youth. Just fancy a young man of eighty, a middle-aged man of three hundred, an old man of eight or even nine hundred years! How strange these numbers sound—how difficult it is for us to realize the state of things which they represent ! And yet it is surprising in what few words these long lives are disposed of by the inspired historian, Even the biography of Methuselah himself, whose life extended well nigh over a thousand years, is compressed into three short verses; two or three facts are mentioned, and then comes the closing scene, which

is described in three commonplace monosyllables, "And he died." Now, perhaps after all, when everything is taken into consideration, the difference between the true length of those men's lives and ours is not so great as might at first appear. You must remember that life is much more intense, so to speak, now than it was then; we live more now in a week than they did then in a year; thus what we lose in extension we make up by intensity. Life is no longer a dull, monotonous round of daily toil, embracing many centuries without producing any extraordinary results. It is something very different from that; for the improvements, contrivances, inventions, accompanying an advanced state of civilization, enable us now to pass through more changes, to meet more incidents, to accomplish more work in a single year, than the patriarchs did in a whole century. Very little

The text sums up the life of Enoch. is said concerning him, and yet that little contains much more than what is said of some of his contemporaries. Take Jared, Enoch's father, for instance. It is stated that he lived, and died, and left sons and daughters after him; but that is all, not a word have we respecting his character—whether he was good or evil, a man of God or a man of the world. But here in a few words-words brimful of meaning— we have a complete description of Enoch's character, and also an obscure hint concerning the wonderful

manner in which he was removed from this world. And the writer to the Hebrews has commented on this passage in terms so explicit, as to relieve it of every difficulty by which it might have otherwise been embarrassed. "By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God."

Enoch is one of the few excellent men mentioned in the Bible, of whom nothing bad is recorded. Abraham is described as the father of the faithful; and yet there are instances on record in which his mighty faith gave way. David is described as a man after God's own heart; and yet there are instances on record in which he provoked God to anger. Peter is described as the foremost among our Lord's disciples; and yet there are instances on record in which he played the coward and the hypocrite. But no derogatory circumstances are recorded concerning Enoch; the historian has nothing but good to say about him; from beginning to end the story of his life is beautiful, glorious, sublime. We are not to conclude however that he must have been free from faults; though I think we may reasonably infer that those faults were too insignificant to be mentioned. The totality of his demeanour, the general tone of his life, must have been so bright as

Who

to make his blemishes almost imperceptible. ever thinks of the flaws on the face of beauty? Who ever thinks of the spots which deface the sun? They exist, you may find them by minute observation; but they do not make a deep impression upon your mind. Thus the character of Enoch, in the midst of a wicked and perverse generation, seemed to be one mass of light, in which there was no darkness at all.

Enoch is one of those men, who owe their immortality to the brightness of their characters. He founded no nation to transmit his name down to posterity; he achieved no victories that have altered the course of history; he left no literary production as a monument of his genius; had it depended on these things, his name must have been completely forgotten; but he has left behind him the memory of a character whose excellence has never been surpassed. In the sublime beauty of that character he will live for ever; when the names of heroes shall have been buried with the marble columns by which they are perpetuated, his name will be the object of an ever-increasing, an ever-deepening, an everlasting admiration.

The text is very simple, very short, very unpretending; and yet it is the record of two most magnificent facts-it is the record of a glorious life and a glorious end.

Let us then consider the text as

I. A SIMPLE RECORD OF A GLORIOUS LIFE.

What does a glorious life consist in? This is a question which men often put, and put with earnestness, to themselves. But perhaps there is no question to which a greater variety of answers is returned. Men occupying different positions, men holding different views, men surrounded by different influences, form widely different opinions as to what constitutes the true glory of human life. The poet thinks it a glorious thing to produce burning thoughts, to master the powers of language, to command brilliant imagery; to revel in imagination through the ethereal regions of the lovely, the grand, the eternal; and then descend from those lofty heights to the lowly regions of real life, to enlighten its gloom, to soothe its sorrows, to strengthen its hopes. The orator thinks it a glorious thing to rivet the attention of assembled multitudes; to allay the tumult of raging passions, to rouse the activity of slumbering energies, to kindle the enthusiasm of indifferent hearts; to stand alone before the great congregation, and witness the torrent of his own eloquence carrying everything before it, just as the swelling of a mighty river sweeps away the timber scattered along its banks. The warrior thinks it a glorious thing to be entrusted with the command of a powerful army; to measure strength, and skill,