I. IT IS NATURAL TO LOOK BACK WITH REGRET ON THE HAPPY PAST. The memory of past joy is not wholly pleasant. If the joy is gone, the memory only adds pain to the present sense of loss. Several things contribute to give intensity to the feeling of regret.

1. Many of the best blessings are not appreciated while we possess them. We have to lose them to learn their value. This is especially true of great common blessings, such as the buoyancy of youth, health, affluence. When all goes well with us we do not consider how many gifts of God we are enjoying. The charm of summer is appreciated when dull November makes us look back on the lost days of brightness. We wake up to the value of our loved ones when they have been taken from us by the hand of death. Adversity reveals the privileges of prosperity. Declining years teach the value of youth.

2. Reflection grows with years. It has been remarked upon as a misfortune that so many of the best things in life seem to be lavished upon an age that is carelessly negligent of them. Strength, energy, health, happiness, in abundance are enjoyed in youth without a thought. When these treasures are more scarce they are carefully economized and highly valued. In later years the habit of looking backward grows upon us, and reflection takes the place of heedless activity. Thus we consider find appreciate with regret in the later years of life what we disregarded in the earlier times of possession.

3. Memory throws a delusive glamour over the past. The distant hills are beautiful; we see their purple shadows, we do not observe their stony paths. Youth is not so sunny as age paints it. Keen pains of youth are forgotten in after-years, especially if those years have brought with them the fortitude that despises such sufferings. For there is a gain in years, and this very gain leads to an over-valuation of youth. Patience and self-control are acquired by experience, and while they help us to bear much that would be intolerable to youth, they also lead us to smile at and under-estimate the wild distresses of earlier years.

IX. IT IS GOOD TO APPRECIATE THE DIVINE BLESSINGS OF THE HAPPY PAST. Job acknowledged that God had preserved him in past days. The candle of the Lord had then shone upon his head. He enjoyed God's friendship when he came to maturity.

1. This adds poignancy to the grief of regret. God has not been sufficiently appreciated. His blessings have not been acknowledged with merited gratitude. Or if no self-accusations arise on these points, still the loss of God's favour seems to accompany the loss of his gifts. The regret has deeper thoughts than those concerning earthly good things. Apparently deserted by God, the troubled man cries, with poor Cowper -

"Where is the blessedness I knew
When first I saw the Lord?
Where is the soul-refreshing view
Of Jesus and his Word?"

2. This should really inspire hope. God is not fickle. His constancy is deeper than appearances. We may have lost hold of his goodness through our own sin or distrust. Perhaps, however, we are deluding ourselves; he is really nearer to us in adversity than he was in prosperity, only we cannot understand the mysteries of his providence. Assuredly, if God once loved and cared for his children, he will never forsake them.

3. This should urge the young to appreciate their privileges. It is not desirable that any should reflect overmuch on their present happy condition, because the charm of it is its unconscious freedom and activity. But it is only right to acknowledge the goodness of God with thankfulness; and to so use early privileges that we shall not afterwards look back with regret on a misspent youth. - W.F.A.

The text tells us of the renown of Job, and of the way in which the providence of God continued to maintain the glory of his estate, his bodily health, and his prosperity, His glory was fresh in him. He did not achieve a hasty fame, and then suddenly become forgotten. He did not blaze out like a meteor, and then vanish into darkness. He says that his bow was renewed in his hand: whereas usually the bow loses its force by use, and is less able to shoot the arrow after a little while, and needs to lie still with a slack string, it was by no means so with him. He could send one arrow, and then another, and then another, and the bow seemed to gather strength by use. That is to say, he never seemed to be worn out in mind or body. However, this did not last always, for Job in this chapter is telling us of something that used to be — something that was — some-thing the loss of which he very sorrowfully deplored — "my glory was fresh in me." He found himself suddenly stripped of riches and of honour, and put last in the list instead of first. So far as glory was concerned, he was forgotten as a dead man out of mind. This reads us a lesson that we put not our trust in the stability of earthly things.

I. First, then, notice THE EXCELLENCY OF FRESHNESS. "I shall be anointed with fresh oil" (Psalm 92:10). David had been anointed while still a youth to be king over Israel. He was anointed yet again when he came to the kingdom: that outward anointing with actual oil was the testimony of God's choice and the ensign of David's authorisation, and oftentimes when his throne seemed precarious God confirmed him in it, and subdued the people under him. When his dominion waxed weak, God strengthened him and strengthened his servants, and gave them great victories; so that as a king he was frequently anointed with fresh oil. Freshness is a most delightful thing if you see it in another. It is a charm in nature. How pleasant to go into the garden and see the spring flowers just peeping up. How agreeable to mark the rills, with their fresh water leaping down the hills after showers of rain. But spiritual freshness has a double charm. Sometimes we know what it is to have a freshness of soul, which is the dew from the Lord.

1. How that freshness is seen in a man's devotions. Oh, I have heard some prayers that are really fusty. I have heard them before so often that I dread the old familiar sounds. Some hackneyed expressions I recollect hearing when I was a boy. But, on the other hand, you hear a man pray who does pray, whose soul is fully in communion with God, and what life and freshness is there!

2. And so it is well to have a freshness about our feelings. I know that we do not hope to be saved by our feelings; neither do we put feeling side by side with faith; yet I should be very sorry to be trusting and yet never feeling. Whether it be joy or sorrow, let it be living feeling, fresh from the deep fountains of the heart. Whether it be exultation or depression, let it be true and not superficial or simulated. I hate the excitement which needs to be pumped up. God keep us from stale feelings, and give us freshness of emotion.

3. I believe that there is a very great beauty and excellence in freshness of utterance. Do not hinder yourself from that.

4. There should be a freshness, dear friends, about our labour. We ought to serve the Lord today with just as much novelty in it as there was ten years ago.

II. Now I will dwell upon the fear of losing it — THE FEAR OF ITS DEPARTURE. I have heard some express the thought that perhaps the things of God might lose their freshness to us by our familiarity with them. I think that the very reverse will turn out to be the case if the familiarity be that of a sanctified heart. Let me tell you some points on which, I fear, we have good ground of alarm, for we do our best to rob ourselves of all life and freshness. Christian people can lose the freshness of their own selves by imitating one another. By adopting as our model some one form of the Christian life other than that which is embodied in the person of our Lord we shall soon manufacture a set of paste gems, but the diamond flash and glory will be unknown. Another way of spoiling your freshness is by repression. The feebler sort of Christians dare not say, feel, or do until they have asked their leader's leave. If we want to keep up our freshness, however, the main thing is never to fall into neglect about our souls. Do you know what state the man is generally in when you are charmed by his freshness? Is he not in fine health? Let the fountain of the heart be right, and then the freshness will speedily be seen. I have shogun you the things by which a man may lose his freshness; avoid them carefully.

III. I close with the third point, which is this precious word which gives us HOPE OF ITS RENEWAL. Let us not think that we must grow stale, and heavenly things grow old with us: For, first, our God in whom we trust renews the face of the year. He is beginning His work again in the fair processes of nature. The dreary winter has passed away. Put your trust, in God, who renews the face of the earth, and look for His Spirit to revive you. Moreover, there is an excellent reason why you may expect to have all your freshness coming back again: it is because Christ dwells in you. Then there is the other grand doctrine of the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. He dwells in you.

( C. H. Spurgeon.).