| Strength and Beauty |
Chapter 25 |
Page 5 |
Says a thoughtful writer: “One of the illusions is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. No man has leaned anything rightly, until he knows that every day is doomsday.” This is very true. We know not what momentous issues, affecting all our future, are involved in any quietest hour of any common place day. There is a time for everything, but the time is short, and when it is gone and the thing is not done it never can be done.
“Never comes the chance that passed;
That one moment was its last.”
“Walk while ye have the light, that darkness overtakes you not.” While you have your eyes, use them. A young man was told by his physicians that in six months he would be blind. At once he set out to look upon the most beautiful scenes in nature and the loveliest works of art in all parts of the world, so that, before his eyes were closed forever, his memory might be stored with visions of beauty to brighten the darkness into which he was surely moving. Use your eyes while you have the light. See as many as possible of the lovely things God has made. Read the best books you can find and store your mind with great and noble thoughts. Learn while it is easy to learn. Be a student. Be a worker, too. Fill your days full of intense activities, for it will be only a little while till darkness shall overtake you, when you can work no more. What you do you must do quickly. What you make of your life, you must make in a few years at the most, for the human span is short, and any day may be the last one.
“I was not resolute in heart and will
To rise up suddenly and seek thy face,
Leaving the swine husks in the desert place,
And crying, ‘I have sinned, receive me still!’
“I could not even at the Shepherd’s voice
Startle and thrill, with yearnings for the fold,
Till he should take me in his blessed hold,
And lay me on his shoulder and rejoice.
“But lying silent, will less in the dark,
A little piece of silver, lost from thee,
I only knew thy hands were seeking me,
And that I bore through all thy heavenly mark.”
Page 5