St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1905-01-28

In vain to sorrow!
! Only the key Of yesterday
Cn.ockS tomorrow.
| GOD alone Who sees the end from
| " the beginning. Who knows our
down sittings and our uprisings, Whose
! searching eye penetrates the human
heart deeper than mans eye can ever
| go, is allie in infinite wisdom and love
J to aid man in the highest and best use
of time. AS we begin the day, God
| Knows how many hours are to pass
into our hands, and He alone can
! teach us how to use those hours to
the best good OF man, and to the hon
oring Of God. A day thoughtfully,
rrayerfully begun is more than half
| conquered. A day feverishly and has
| thy plunged into is filled with the pit
falls of failure and disappointment
into which are dumped many pre-
cious moment and hour. If the Spirit
of God SO ruled in the life as to make
it sensitive to the Divine will, and the
moments were used as He would have
business, social and domestic affairs
would be dignified with higher ideals
and holier methods, and the hours of
recreation, the play time which is es-
sential to healthy, vigorous life, would
be wholesome and ennobling. The
prayer of our text is justified by the
innumerable promises OF God that He
will give wisdom, that He will guide
and direct James sums it all up by
saying: IF any of you lack wisdom.
let him ask of God, that giveth to all
men literally, and upb-aideth not; and
it shall be given him. 1t is the priv
ilege of Gods children to draw on the
banking house of God for unlimited
supplies of wisdom. No check proper
ly drawn and presented is ever dis
honored. Man may have all the help
he needs in wisely and faithfully US
ing the time as it passes. And in tho
purpose and will of God each moment
may become studded with priceless
gems of enduring brilliancy and beau
ty. Using the time as God would
have us is building for eternity.
w E ARE all familiar with the story
w OF the lady, who, floating over
the sea in boat, was suddenly wax
ened to discover that her magnificent
necklace of pearls had become unfas-
tened by some accident and the loose
end hanging down in the water was
dropping the precious pearls one by
one into the unrecoverable depths So
with us. We let the pearly moments
slip into the unbelievable past May
We awaken to sense of our loss The
lines of Susan Coolidge's The Lost
Days come to me:
"As, each in turn, the Old Years rise and
grid them up to go
Tie days. which were their servitors, press
round them sad and slow
The happy days. the hard days, the bitter
ard the dear:
And they front US with reproachful eyes
as they Wend forth with the year.
Tie lost days which except for US so
blessed might have been,
Biishted by our perversity, or Swallowed
by our sin
The vexing days the moody days. the DAYS
Of stress and pain
The shrili perverse, unhappy days, we face
them all again.
!" Come back dear days we cry; we will
atone for all the wrong;
Your emptiness shall be made full your
discor6s turned to song
Only the echo answers; all vain the griev-
ing sore.
The past is past, the dead is dead the
chance returns no more
But. as the sweetest hopes are born of
sharpest suffering.
And midnight is the womb of day and win
ter of the spring.
So, winning blessing from despair, lost op-
portunity
May serve to make the fruitful soil of har-
vests yet to be.
For each day heavy made by US, some |
day may gather wings.
Be every failure that we mourn the germ
of happier things,
And all the sadness of the past the seed Of |
hope newborn,
Til! out of the defeated night bursts the tri-
umphant morn.
THE Old Years, stern, inexorab,e. may go
their ways in vain:
The days We marred and mourn shall smile |
if from their persisted pain
Distills perfume. shines gleam to make
the future way
The brighter and the easier because of
yesterday.
A MOTHER thought which we would
n emphasize in connection with this
natter of the use of time is the inn
portance of gathering the odd mo-
nents as they pass. In large endeav-
ors and purposes we may be splendid
" working out the will and purpose
Of Cod We may be using the time in
the wisest and best way possible, and
yet, while our eyes are on the larger
interests, we may be letting the fras-
mentary moments slip unused away,
He Who told His disciples to gather
up the fragments after the 5000 had
been fed, SO values the precious mo-
Ments that He would have us gath