IN THE PRESENT.

Otago Witness, Issue 2511, 30 April 1902, Page 61

IN THE PRESENT.

How very much we are given to living in the future or in the pa-t — any time but an the piesent. and how much of our .misery anses theiefrom. I think it would be a helpful thing if each w ould form the habit of putting into three piles -it the close of each day, all that we have suffered durins the- day: one pile to iepie=ent all of grief or anxiety ihdt had come to us as we looked into the future, and painted pictures m which we figured helpless mortals in some fearful strait, perhaps financial, perhaps domestic, or it might have to do with conscience and our work; all the sorrow and pain and difficulty that came with the day, and really belonged to Jim. ic44 called, 'bx y&in. *ad

Jie is often so busy reaung, always in the I future, <-oine airy stiucture that he cannot make to-day's work strong and beautiI ful. He is so busy planning that he has but little time to ■work — lives in such a i world of pictures that he gives small heed to realities, and so the future becomes today, and finds him dreaming still— always J intending to do, never doing. Many a life I Las been thu.s ;d]y wasted, walking alwayswith that faraway gaze, peering into the future : all or most of the peails of to-day are parsed by, the fiagiance of wayside ltoweis is unfelt. the opportunity to do a good or noble deed is lost, and gone on vo appear again as an accuser. Youth is I said to be especially the time of " ca^tlebnildin^'." I have my doubts as to that being the case ; but to all who are inclined in their bright morning houis to neglect to-day for the sake ot to-nionow, I would say, "Take heed! j Ah, me 1 the things that we moan to do In the great, grrat Aiterwhile , When our ship comes in "\V« ure sure to begin, And will keep right on at it too. Yes, je=, my boys, I know it is true 1 Th«t we mean ju^t what we say, But Aiterwlnle la a imthical place, I In the realms of an unborn day And thousands, my boys, aie tra\elling tin* road "Whose hands aie as white as the =now, Who meant to slop off at the greut Aitcrwhile, In the years of the long- ago. Yet fortune or fame ne'ir came lo them, boys, And neither will th"v cmie to you If you -wait to hogm jm the jp-eat AftiTwhile £l\ the grand thirjrs that you mean to do. 'Tis best. 111*11, liovs, to begin right- hero, In the. Land of the Greater To-d.<\, A"d work while you wait, for \our «-hin ruight be !<<tc — Then \ou'd nihs half of life, I fear. Many >> one who ha-s resolutely turned Xcuca ii* Wight jaiaiiii£A JEaacE ykd*. pumx.-

Every hour that fleets so slowly Has its task to do or bear, that they fail to remember what might brighten, not to .say lighten, their weight of care. Lumu.ous the crown, and holy, When each gem is kept with care. I And so, lons£ befoie the day is spent, they ' find that all the strength and vigour which. | kept for toil, would have carried them thiough, and left enough for an evening song of thanksgiving, h;is been frittered away in a feverish wonder as to ''however I the work of thi-j day was to be done " and a useless th.ining against little delays which perhaps God meant lo be resting-places from ■which they might have emerged lefrc^hed and encouiagLd. If the looking forward in some of the ways I have descubed i= hurtful to living our be^t to-day, so, also, is a teitain kind of looking back. We luve no light to remember our mi.°take« link- 1 - it js lr> profit by them; no light to remember the mistake^ of otl,Pi<- unless it is to <-how to them the same pitying Irnieiicy tli.it God si.ow« to our- What piofit is thcie in nnuvdi'nu' ii.'iet fui a step taken in the past — a step which perhaps- we touk contr.u\ to the advice of friend 1 - — a step which ( tocZ allowed u^ to take that He might If an that <iiir own way was not always the best way'/ For tho«e of us who pro/«?s S to believe that God ink"-, that He is ever woiking out out ultimate and lughe-t good, it is little short of — blasphemy I was going to wnte, and leally I do not know what other word to put in its place, and still say all I think; and yet I feel that some of you may think it too stiong Let us pray that we may live each day i-o earnestly s-tri\ ing to letrieve and atone for the mistakes of the past, so patiently and trustfully doing the ta-ks tint unfold with the day, so thankfully gathering c\ery flower that God sent to bloom in it for it 1 -, that ere it passes we may have le/unctl well every !es- . soil He de-j^nai us to learn, and left j hp.liinrl jjy £EX _|p<--"" S- . *^"""'n.l7 cttino j l-.o< j

will indeed enable us to rise to a highef level to-morrow.