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There is a right way and a wrong way of measuring a door, or a wall, or an arch, or a tower; and so there is a right way and a wrong way of measuring our earthly existence. It is with reference to this higher meaning that I confront you, this morning, with the stupendous question of the text, and ask: "How old art thou?"

I. There are many who measure their life by mere WORLDLY GRATIFICATION. When Lord Dundas was wished a happy new year, he said: "It will have to be a happier year than the past, for I hadn't one happy moment in all the twelve months that have gone." But that has not been the experience of most of us. We have found that though the world is blighted with sin, it is a very bright and beautiful place to reside in. We have had joys innumerable. There is no hostility between the Gospel and the merriments and the festivities of life. If there is any one who has a right to the enjoyments of the world, it is the Christian, for God has given him a lease to everything in the promise: " All are yours." But I have to tell you that a man who measures his life on earth by mere worldly gratification is a most unwise man. Our life is not to be a game of chess. It is not a dance in lighted hall, to quick music. It is not the froth of an ale pitcher. It is not the settings of a wine cup. It is not a banquet with intoxication and roystering. It is the first step on a ladder that mounts into the skies, or the first step on a road that plunges in a horrible abyss. So that in this world we are only keying up the harp of eternal rapture, or forging the chain of an eternal bondage.

II. Again: I remark that there are many who measure their life on earth by THEIR SORROWS AND THEIR MISFORTUNES. Through a great many of your lives the ploughshare hath gone very deep, turning up a terrible furrow. The brightest life must have its shadows, and the smoothest path its thorns. On the happiest brood the hawk pounces. No escape from trouble of some kind. Misfortune, trial, vexation, for almost every one. Pope, applauded of all the world, has a stoop in the shoulder that annoys him so much that he has a tunnel dug, so that he may go unobserved from garden to grotto, and from grotto to garden. Canno, the famous Spanish artist, is disgusted with the crucifix that the priest holds before him, because it is such a poor specimen of sculpture. And yet it is unfair to measure a man's life by his misfortunes, because where there is one stalk of nightshade, there are fifty marigolds and harebells; where there is one cloud thunder-charged, there are hundreds that stray across the heavens, the glory of land and sky asleep in their bosom.

III. Again: I remark that there are many people who measure their life on earth by the AMOUNT OF MONEY THEY HAVE ACCUMULATED. They say: "The year 1847, 1857, 1867, was wasted." Why? Made no money. Now, it is all cant and insincerity to talk against money as though it had no value. It is refinement, and education, and ten thousand blessed surroundings. It is the spreading of the table that feeds your children's hunger. It is the lighting of the furnace that keeps you warm. Bonds, and mortgages, and leases have their use, but they make a poor yardstick with which to measure life.

IV. But I remark: there are many who measure their life by their MORAL AND SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT. It is not sinful egotism for a Christian man to say: "I am purer than I used to be. I am more consecrated to Christ than I used to be. I have got over a great many of the bad habits in which I used to indulge. I am a great deal better man than I used to be." It is not base egotism for a soldier to say: "I know more about military tactics than I used to before I took a musket in my hand, and learned to 'present arms,' and when I was a pest to the drill-officer." It is not base egotism for a sailor to say: "I know how better to 'pull' the windlass and clue down the mizzen topsail than I used to before I had ever seen a ship." And there is no sinful egotism when a Christian man, fighting the battles of the Lord, or, if you will have it, voyaging towards a haven of eternal rest, says: "I know more about spiritual tactics, and about voyaging towards heaven, than I used to."

V. I remark again: there are many who are measuring life by the AMOUNT OF GOOD THEY CAN DO. John Bradford said he counted that day nothing at all in which he had not, by pen or tongue, done some good. Contrast the death scene of a man who has measured life by the worldly standard with the death scene of a man who has measured life by the Christian standard. Quin, the actor, in his last moments said: "I hope this tragic scene will soon be over, and I hope to keep my dignity to the last." Malherbe said, in his last moments, to the confessor; "Hold your tongue I your miserable style puts me out of conceit of heaven." Lord Chesterfield, in his last moments, when he ought to have been praying for his soul, bothered himself about the proprieties of the sick-room, and said: "Give Dayboles a chair." Godfrey Kneller spent his last hours on earth in drawing a diagram of his own monument. Compare the silly and horrible departure of such men with the seraphic glow on the face of Edward Payson, as he said in his last moment: "The breezes of heaven fan me. I float in a sea of glory." This is a good day in which to begin a new style of measurement. How old art thou? You see the Christian way of measuring life and the worldly way of measuring it. I leave it to you to say which is the wisest and best way.

(Dr. Talmage.)

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KJV: And Pharaoh said unto Jacob, How old art thou?

WEB: Pharaoh said to Jacob, "How many are the days of the years of your life?"