YOU NEVER CAN TELL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIV, Issue 38, 15 January 1897, Page 17

YOU NEVER CAN TELL.

You can never tell when you send a word — Like an arrow shot from a bow By an archer blind — be it cruel or kind, Just where it will chance to go. It may pierce the breast of your dearest friend, Tipped with its poison or balm ; To a stranger's heart in life's great mart It may carry its pain or its calm. You never can tell when you do an act Just what the result will be ; But with every deed you are sowing the seed, Though it's harvest you may not sec. Each kindly act is an acorn dropped In God's productive soil ; Though you may not know, yet the tree shall grow And shelter the brows that toil. You never can tell what your thoughts will do In bringing you hate or love ; For thoughts are things, and their airy wings Are swifter than carrier dove. They follow the law of the universe — Each thing must create its kind ; And they speed o'er the track to bring you back Whatever went out of your mind.

— Ella Wheeler Willcox, in '• Munsey's."

In what was once an old Catholic college in England the r e still exists a tower with a bell which has an ancient inscription engraven round it, meant as a reminder, at every stroke of the bell. of the importance of the flying moments. The inscription is : Periunt et ivipntantur. The minutes perish it is true, but they do not fall into oblivion. For they are imputed to us, and written down to our account against the day of the revelation of the Lord. Let us learn a lesson from this old inscription. Perhaps no season of the year is so devotional, so full of graces, as Advent season. But let us not forget the warning voice of the old bell — Prnunt it imjtutantur ; for all these precious moments of grace will have to be accounted for. Let us, therefore, look well to it that we correspond faithfully with the grace of Grod. — Moth Kit Drane. A victory over self is after all, a trying victory, and one that has in it little of compensating j>lory beyond the approval of conscience ; and yet there is no more poignant suffering than that which is self-imposed, and no more noble victory than that of the closet where the dominion of some brooding, morbid fancy is fought and cast aside. There is dew on one flower and not on another, because one opens its cup to take it in, while the other closes itself, and the drop rolls off. So God rains goodness and mercy as wide as the dew. and if we lack them it is because we will not open our hearts to receive them.