THE EMPLOYMENT OF TIME.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3897, 25 June 1881, Page 4

THE EMPLOYMENT OF TIME.

;The world would consider as very foolish the man who, while the possessor of an .immense fortune, would suffer it all to! be lost for want of care and attention, and would make no use of it either to Praise himself to a position which would lift him out of the - obscurity in which h6^ lifesV or to amass ; a fortune which w^uld secure him against any future' reTerses. Now 1, time is this great treasure given to us at our birth, and which the Lord leaves us through pure mercy. It is placed in our hands, and it is for us to , make use of it; not to seek after vain dignities and human greatness; alas! all that passes here below is too vile to be purchased with time, which itself purchases an eternity. It is given that.we mkj raise ourselves above even the crowd of the children of Adam, above even the C^sars and kings of earth, to thai immortal society of the blessed t where all are kings and whose reign has no limits other than those of eternity. What folly; then, to make no use of so inestimable a treasure, to waste away, iv frivolous . amusements' a time which may well be the priceof our eternal salvation, and to offer the hope of immortality to be dissipated like smoke! A single day lost should cause regret a thousand times more keen and cutting than the loss of a great fortune. And yet this time, precious as it is, is a burden to us; our whole life seems to be a continual study how to lose it; and despite all our attempts to squander it there always remains more than we know what to do with. What we least value is our time; our services we reserve for our friends; our benefits for our associates; our goods for our neighbors and our children; our credit and fervour for ourselves; our praises for those who seem to us worthy of them; our time we give to everybody; we expose it, so to speak, a prey to all men ; it is even a pleasure to rid ourselves of it; it is, as it were, a weight which we bear in the midst of the world, always seeking some one to relieve us from it. Thus does time, that gift of God, that precious benefit of His mercy, which should be the price of our eternity, cause all the - embarrassment and form the heaviest burden of our life.—Massillon. - -