Orange County observer. [volume] (Hillsborough, N.C.) 1880-1918, 1904-06-02

amples teach us forcibly enough how abuxe
dant are the hours of the day for the no.
blest tasks Of life, If we would but seek
grace to use them Alright. "Redeeming the
time, says the apostle. How many Of M
ask Gods grace each day We rise, to USE
for the benefit Of our fellow men?
do we realize this privilege of twelve
hours day sufficiently? am quite sure
II we did we should not say SC often as we
do that we have no time. We should not
waste waste 50 So much time in talking platitudes
up and doing, living life in earnest, and
| not in spasms Yet think how many
squander these preeious twelve hours day
| by day. Think, for example, of the hours
| OF idle reveries, useless, aimless dreaming,
| respectable loanng, that many Of lis give
ourselves up to throughout the day. 1t is
| not perhaps that Sour thoughts are vicious
or impure, but simply that our minds get
into state of suspended animation, dur
| ing which an uncurbed fancy makes havoc
OF our will power, .paralyzes our energy,
and robs us of the days mcst precious OPP
| idleness-quiet, restful thought, in which
| the soul dreams its visions for service, is
not wasted time. But the mistake 50
many of us make is that our moments Of
| meditation are lost in hours Of idle dream
| ing which leads us nowhere save only into
| the mazes of selfish indulgence and senti-
mental fancy. Twelve hours in the day.,
| and how many lost in foolish dreaming?
Think, too, what waste In gossip, in
| needless, thoughtless talk 1t is not that
we are deliberate scanda[mongers, ont
simply that to pass the time we indulge in
a kind of talk about our neighbors and
/! friends, the results Of which for evil are
greater than we may ever know. VINO can
estimate the regulations that have been
wrecked, the lives of promise that have
| been crippled, the usefulness for good In
| the world that has been checked by the
retailing of evil SANDER throughout the
twelve hours of the day?
Once more, think of the hours consumed
in the pursuit of merely selfish pleasure.
Indifferent to the bitter cry of outcast hu--
| manity, calous to the great moral needs of
the hour that come knocking at our doors,
| how many of us use up the twelve hours
| in the pursuit of schemes whose one pur-
pose is for self and sell alone. Busy we
may be, but so busy with the affairs Of self
| that we have no time to spend for the COM
mon good, for the needs of man, or the
glory of God, Twelve hours! and all OF
| them strangled upon the altar of self-not
one given up to God, to wing its way up
ward like incense 1efore the eternal throne4
| Look back upon the week tiat is gone,
with its treasury of hours, and what record
| have they left upon the tablets of the soul2
! Low many hours of last week WI messed
you on your knees before God? How many
hours did you give to prayer? How many
hours did you give to studying the Bible.
How many to thinking thoughts Of love
and translating them into deeds of kind
ness? How many to crucifying self and
enthroning Christ? How many? Perhaps
not even one. And yet on these hours we
are building character for eternity; out OF
these hours is growing that immortal SELF
with which at last we must stand before
the judgment seat Of God. Twelve hours
in the day to work out your salvation, and
how many men are using these twelve
hours in working out their perdition!
How, then, are we gong to redeem our
days, make the most of those twelve hours,
recall them with sorrow End shame?
I would not be so foolish as to say that
this power to use time aright means that
we are to fill up each separate hour with
would be impossible, and, even if it were
possible, it would turn us into self-cQn-
scious prigs anG moral pedants. You cam
not detach every hour and say, as Franklin
said in his diary, that this hour will be de-
voted to such an such duty, that he
to some other duty, and so on. That would
destroy great deal of the inspiration OF
life and would turn existence into grind
ing macl inc. No, the hours :re to be re-
deemed, not so much by what we do in
them as by the spirit we bring to them, by
the temper in which we use them. Let
every day be begun with its season: of spe'
cial prayer. Let it have its moments shut
off for communion with God. And then
these moments, however brief, of conse.
Grated prayer, will give a tonic to the rest
of the day >-hich will make impossible that
fippant dissipation of time which is SC
ruinous to character.
There are two things that this spirit o1
| 1,,oa of fJ,<
twelve hours in the day. First, prayer
, produces sense of urgency, spirit o.
haste, if you like, but not spirit of hurry
: Tt intensifes the thought that time is shor
and yet enough for each one of us to de
) something for God. It is that feeling O
urgency IN regard to each day as It comes
that it should leave the record Of some
, thing attempted, something given for Coo
, and our fellow men, that gives richness tx
, life, beauty to character, a sunny IA
E ! dance to the soul, that makes earth tn,
threshold of heaven. Nothing is more dis
gusting than to meet people who sinlpl,
loaf through life, without any sense of ur
e gency. AS the saying goes, they do no.
5 care whether school keeps or not. They
e are not worried about the -orid's necessi
s ties What we want is this sense OF ur
Y gency. Time is short, and yet long enougl
:. with prayer to do something chat vii
t abide when we have passed away. THAI i
SAS'
a twelve hours of the day.
It The second thing is sense of calmness
e a spirit of serenity. How often we fre
d and worry beneath the pressure Of life
# The friction of care reduces the effective
Z, ness Of our energy. Many men are wearin
n themselves out before their time, simpl,
@ because they have this hallucination tina
there is not time enough. They get into
l. fever Of worry because the days are to
If short. But prayer brings to us the though
If that God has given us time enough, and al
is He asks from us is to live and work by th
d day. In His service we are onl.- day labo1
IF ers. With tomorrow we have nothing t
is do. The command is, "Go, work to-day,
c. and the promise is, ''I will pay you penn
D. a day." Gods wages are paid, not by tn
month nor the week, but by the day. Fac
le day brings it's duty, but each day bring
o. it's grace and strength and blessing as well
se With some of US here this evening th
1t day of life is young. The morning high
le still lends freshness to your youthful a.
st DOR But with Others of Is it is alread
in the eleventh hou-, the eleventh hour J
N life's busy day. Although we know it no
lg the dusk of time IS falling fa:5. The tw
d light of our years 8 deepening and high
le in the belfry of the soul
to ssrho o,,rfoxI, fo1a tho kno11 of nassinP day.