The Farmville herald. [volume] (Farmville, Va.) 1890-1934, 1905-02-17
IMPROVE THE TIME.
Rev. Or. .Talmage Warns Against
Wasting the Moments.
The Beginning of the New Year Is
Good Time TO Resolve to
Use Our Days Wisely
and Well.

Copyright 1901 by Louis Klopsch.l
LOS ANGELES, Cal, Jan. S.-The
day lost by solar reckoning in wester-
ly voyage around the world furnishes
the preacher in this sermon with an IL
lustratiOn by which, as he shows, days
are continually being lost in the voy-
age OF life; text, Ecclesiastes tx, 10,
Whatsoever thy hand indeth TO do,
do it with thy might"
What tragic significance there may
be In that little word "Lostw We hear
II in the despalring cry Of the miners
starving In the Death valley Of the
Mojave desert. We hear it in the Bit
ter cry Of the travellers bewildered in
midwlnter on the Montana prairies. 1t
is shrek Of horror on the lips OF the
poor children on the General Slocum
burning ON the sound Of New York.
II is a cry Of dlsmay from the crew OF
the Royal Charter wrecked on the
Irish coast. II Is a cry Of agony from
the man I'm the upper story Of the
Windsor hotel in New York. whose
body with suppliant arms stretched in
entreaty TO the firemen falls into the
seething furnace. "He Is lost.' we
cry as one Of our number slides over
the edge Of the Alpine glacier. He is
lostw we said I'm sorrow when our
friend, the Rev. Or. Robert b. Taylor
Of San Diego made false step from
the deck of the sailbOat and sank to
rise no more. LOST cries the mother
frantically pacing the streets looking
for her wandering child. "LOst'' cries
the gambler who has ventured his last
coin on the turn Of the wheel. Horror
and dismay and agony and despair are
heard in that thrilling word.
There is another kind Of loss of which
I want to speak to you today. At the
beginning of new year 1t is impressed
upon us with solemn import. Looking
backward over the year that Is gone,
how sad is the thought Of our lost
days! Days there have been in which
we might have done work for God
which we have suffered to pass away
in idleness. days which can never be
recalled which we have frittered away
uselessly.
We all know the old adage that time
Ia money" We are all ready to grant
that this axiom Is true. IF man has
no regard for the time Of other men,"
wrote Horace Greeley, why should he
have for their money? What is the diff
ference between stealing a mans hour
and stealing his So? There are many
men to whom each hour Of the business
day is worth more than So" But, though
time means money to most Of US, time
should mean more than that. 1t is a
sacred trust committed TO US, for the
right use Of which we shall have to
give account. Little enough is the por-
ton we can devote to our Masters serv-
Ice. II we waste it we defraud God.
We waste these days simply by vast
Ing here a minute and there a minute.
This thought was brought home to me
in my tour around the world. In 1893
my father and | left our homes in the
east and started on our journey. We
followed the course Of the setting sun.
We Travelled from New York to Pitts
burg. from Plttsburg to Chicago, from
Chicago to st. Louis. from ST. Louis to
Denver, and then to San Francisco. We
rigzagged up and down, but always
kept pushing toward the west. AT San
Francisco we set sail for the Sandwich !
Islands. Then we went on to Samoa.
Sometimes we would stop two or three |
days in a town, sometimes a full week.
1t took us seven long months to encir-
Gle the globe. Each day, as a rule, was |
for US not twenty-four hours. but twen-
ty-four hours and ten or fifteen or even |
thirty minutes long. OF course you |
grasp my meaning. We were lengthen- |
Ing our days, because we were travel
ing westward. How we're we to straight |
en- out our calendar? This was the way |
we did II. One night we went to bed on |
Wednesday. The next morning when |
we awoke II was Friday. There, in the |
middle Of the Pacific ocean, we lost a |
full day. How did that day disappeari |
As | sat that Friday morning. after |
Thursday was dropped out Of my cal |
endsr, said to myself: yes, yes. This
Is the way many days are lost for |
Christ in our great journey Of life
Here II is n few minutes wasted for |
Christ in the morning. There it is a
few minutes wasted at noon or at
eventide or at night These few min
utes do not seem to amount.to much at
the time. but in the aggregate they
make up whole days weeks, months
and perhaps whole years Of wasted
time that might have been spent in
service for the Master"
How many days that might have
been given to Christ have we losti
How do we lose theml First, by not
starting the work Of each day prompt
" and energetically as we ought to do
by oversleeping In the morning or by
dawdling through our dressing, by lin
gering too long at the breakfast table.
by yawning and stretching and idly
building air castles in bed after the
rising bell has rung, by ignoring the
"get up" call, which King Solomon in
the sixth chapter Of Proverbs pounds
upon every bedroom door when he
calls: How long wilt thou sleep, o
sluggard? When wilt thou arise ont
Of thy sleep? Yet a little sleep. lit
tie slumber, little folding Of the
hands to sleep. SO shall thy poverty
come ms one that traveleth and thy
want as an armed man." Lord VIII
mington once declared that the cause
OF the failure OF the famous English
statesman the Duke OF Newcastle.
was that he never started the days
work on time. "He loses half an hour
every morning and runs after it during
the whole day without being able to
overtake IT," Many men and women
are wasting precious days that might
be used for Christ by not getting up on