Sunday at Home.

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 8, 20 May 1893, Page 7

Sunday at Home.

TIME ONE OF THE TALENTS.

(By the Bishop of Coventry, in Lloyd’s Weekly,) “ Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day?"—St. John xi., 9. Now, look at tills question of our Blessed Lord’s again, and you will see tlie second tiling wliiclr it tells yon, a thing quite as certain as the other, not merely how much time you have for your work in life, but how little after all that time is ! There are fully twelve hours in the day, and therefore there is time enough for all duties. There are only twelve hours, and therefore there is no time for delay or idleness. Our Saviour’s example, as well as His teaching, press home upon us this great necessity “Work while it is day ; the night cometh, when no man can work.” Every moment which you have wasted will create bitter regret, when you come to look hack upon your past lives. Life may he well divided between work and play, duty and recreation, business and devotion, personal labour and social civility, the gaining of a livelihood for ourselves, and acts of kindness to others. But search all through life, with its days and hours and years, and you will not find a single moment available for idleness, or unholy pleasure, or plotting evil, for foolish talk and gossip, for hatching and propagating scandalous reports, and idle tales, not a single moment which can be laid on sin’s unhallowed altar. Apart from the wickedness of such things, the longest life is not long enough for them; the longest life affords no superfluous time, no more time than is necessary for work and recreation, wisely apportioned, for learning the best things, for activity in doing good, for a constant use of the means of grace, for increase of knowledge, and growth of holiness. Let this be your rule : be diligent, be cheerful, he kind to all, fear God, always keep pressing onward, always keep rising higher and higher in true godliness, in culture, in usefulness. Continue instant in prayer, take every opportunity of coming to Holy Communion, read, and read again, and read once more, and still continue to read and study the Holy Scriptures, and afterwards, but never till you have studied your Bible well, read other wholesome books. Never think that any good thing is really finished as long as you live : make the goal of to-day the starting point of to-morrow. Remember, too, that time is one of the talents for the right use of which God will reckon with you at the last day. Well-spent days will bring peace at the last, and joy throughout eternity. Wasted days, idle hours, moments in which God might have been, but was not, remembered, will come back to be our accusers. Foget not bow true it is, that: Days and moments quickly flying, Blend the living with the dead ; Soon will you and I be lying Each within our narrow bed. Soon our souls to Q-od who gave them, Will have sped their rapid flight. Able now to grace and save them, Oh, that while we can, we might!