Procrastination is the thief of power and happiness as well as of time. Here, at your side and mine, are needs that appeal for such ministry as we can give. Now is always "the acceptable time." Heal the hurts of to-day, and save to-morrow's pain. Speak the true, kind word to-day, and save to-morrow's regret when ears deaf with death cannot receive the tardy tribute of appreciation and sympathy. Bestow your charities now, when with them will go, to enhance their value, the force of your personal interest and influence; men often plan to make large benefactions when they are dead, and waste the opportunity of making richer gifts while they live. The dead hand may scatter gold, but the living hand scatters with the gold that which is of greater worth. We shall save time by cultivating, not only a higher estimate of present opportunities and duties, but also a warmer and more generous appreciation of present companionship. Too often we prize our fellows only when they are gone. Death lays his finger on the lips of captious criticism, and opens the eyes to previously unseen or only half-seen virtues. How true it is that we really know those about us only after they have left our side and passed beyond the reach of our praise or blame! Many a true heart is chilled by neglect; many a willing hand is paralyzed by want of quick and sympathetic coöperation. We look into each other's faces and see little of what is going on in the soul. The bravest and best often are least demonstrative and least given to complaining; and eyes that meet our gaze calmly, and with no tell-tale shadow of reproach or appeal, weep inwardly tears of bitter grief and unutterable longing for a little human sympathy to-day. As soldiers die side by side in battle, each unconscious of the other's sharp agony, so often men toil and strive within hand's reach of each other, and know not each other's pain. It is just that we should love and honor the dead, but it is not less just that we should love and honor the living. Is there some inexorable law that we should not be generous, or even fairly just, to our brothers and sisters while they are within the sound of our voices? Is death the only solvent that can effectually reduce the barriers which ignorance and selfishness, or the paltry conventionalities of society, build up between us? How often a fainting heart would have been inspired to fresh courage and hope by words that remained unspoken till the mute appeal from a coffin unlocked reluctant lips. Oh, my friends, seize this moment to speak the word of comfort, the word of hope, the word of appreciation and praise! Save time by doing now the thing that ought to be done now. If you have wronged any one, right the wrong to-day; if you have sinned, repent to-day; if you are impelled to reach out for divine help, yield to the impulse now; if you are conscious that Christ calls you to a larger service of your fellow-men, hear him now. Do the duty that lies next. Delay is time lost; action is time saved and life saved. After all, this whole question of how to save time is rightly answered by rightly answering the question, Whose is your time? Who gives it to you? Who has an indefeasible claim to its entire use? The recognition of God's claim is the first condition of the true economy of time. "Speak to Him thou, for He hears, and spirit with spirit can meet. Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet." 14 CHARITY. DID Universal Charity prevail, Earth would be an heaven, and hell a fable. - COLTON. You will find people ready enough to do the Samaritan without the oil and two-pence.· - SIDNEY SMITH. A Tuscan coast-guard reported to his government that there had been a lamentable shipwreck on the coast, and he said, "Notwithstanding that I lent to the crew on board the ship every assistance possible by means of my speakingtrumpet, I regret to say that a number of bodies were washed upon the shore next morning, dead."— Anonymous. The highest exercise of charity is charity towards the uncharitable.- BUCKMINSTER. He that cannot forgive others, breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself; for every man has need to be forgiven. - HERBERT. When death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.GEORGE ELIOT. Judge not; What looks to thy dim eye a stain, In God's pure light may only be A scar brought from some well-won field, Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. ... Charity never faileth. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. SAINT PAUL. THE HE word rendered "charity" in that marvellous prose idyl, the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, is the Greek ȧyáπn, which means love. The Vulgate, or early Latin Version of the New Testament, rendered ȧyáŋ by caritas. This word, meaning "dearness, expensiveness," and then "esteem, high regard," and even "love," reappears in our English "charity." Caritas, or Charitas as it is sometimes spelled, is not a true equivalent of ảyáπŋ, but the Latin amor, "love," had sensual uses and associations, surviving in our word "amorous," that utterly unfitted it for expressing the spiritual idea which underlies àɣáπη in New Testament Greek. This is the reason why caritas in the Latin Version, and "charity" in the English Version were used to translate a word which means love in its highest and holiest sense. The Revised Version of the English Bible accu |