Now and Then

This was an emphatic rule of St. Paul: “Behold, now is the accepted time.” A lost opportunity is the greatest of losses. Whittier mourned it as what “might have been.” We own no past, no future, we possess only now. If the reliable now is carelessly lost in speaking or in acting, it comes not back again. Whatever needs to be done which cannot be done now, God prepares the way for doing; while that which can be done now, but is not, increases our indebtedness to God. Faith in divine Love supplies the ever-present help and now, and gives the power to “act in the living present.”

The dear children’s good deeds are gems in the settings of manhood and womanhood. The good they desire to do, they insist upon doing now. They speculate neither on the past, present, nor future, but, taking no thought for the morrow, act in God’s time. (My.)