Norwich bulletin., 1915-05-08
Sunday Morning Talk
THE NICK OF TIME.

There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to
 fortune;
 Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shadows and in miseries. mulated a truth of which every man has at least some realization. The current of life sets-right at certain hour, and the canny mariner will take it when it serves. Fleeting opportun- ity must be seized.
 The book of Ecclesiastes emphasiz- eS the same lesson. ITO everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven" And if other sapient words are required to clinch the point, those of Pliny the Elder may be quoted: Tt is a maxim uni versally agreed upon in agriculture that nothing must be done too late; and again, that everything must be done at it's proper season; while there Is a third precept which reminds us that opportunities lost can never be regained."
 The peril of misjudging the main chance, of procrastination, has been dinned into the ears of succeeding gen erations. We have been warned of how serious O mistake it is to miss the tide at the flood. And all dawdEng
 
 give heed to the warning.
 This doctrine of the swift and irrev- ocable passing of opportunity may be preached, however, in a way merely to discourage people. It is possible to put fictitious importance on some single tary indecision. A man may be made to feel that having made a single false move, having committed single strategic blunder, he is hopelessly out of the race. Of necessity he stands condemned to failure, penury and woe because once he missed some leading chance.
 I cannot believe that life plays so sharp a game as that with us. A hu- man being is not to make or break his grasp or loss of opportunity, We will grant that, occasionally a lucky guess on the stock exchange may mean fin- ancial competence and an unlucky one financial ruin. We will grant that oc- casionally some fortunate political al- liance for a man or some social con- nection for a woman will raise to prominence those who might otherwise have lived in oblivion. But we will not grant that those who have let some chances slip by must henceforth resign themselves to inevitable fail- ure.
 Success in life is a bigger thing than any particular financial, political or social triumphs that may have attend ed it. Success is, after all, spiritual rather than a material value. It is to be judged in terms of character and of little else. No ones life is bound in shadows or in miseries, whatever his bIunders or his defeats, till he has lost his purpose to become a moral conqueror, to become great of soul.
 Practically life is built up on a long series of choices rather than on a sin gle strategic choice on which every thing else depends. Character results from a daily and hourly doing of the best that one can do under the cir cumstanees. It is a will set to make the most of each opportunity as it comes.
 There is, then. of course. no time like the present. Just now is the time to do the thing that ought to be done.
 What time is 1t?
 Time to do well, time to live better Give up that grudge. answer that let-
 ter,
 Speak the kind word to sweeten a
 sorrow,
 Do that kind deed you would leave
 till tomorrow.
 Every day is doomsday. Every moment is the nick of time.
 THE PARSoN,