CHAPTER XVI TIMELINESS IN DUTY
The element of time is a vital matter in many duties. Done at
the right moment, there is a blessing in them. Delayed, they were as
well not done at all. If we sleep through the hour
for duty, we may as well sleep on after the hour. Waking, then,
will not avail to accomplish that which we were set to do.
There are many applications of this principle. Whatever we do
for our friends, we must do when they need our help. If one is
sick, the time to show our affection and our sympathy is while the
sickness continues and not after the friend is well again. If
we allow him to pass through his illness without showing him
any attention, There is no use, when he's going about again,
for us to wake up and begin to lavish kindness upon him. He
does not need it now, and it will do him no good. If one of
our friends is passing through some sore struggle with temptation,
and is in danger of being overcome, then is the time to come up close
alongside of him and put the strength of our love under his
weakness to support him. If we fail him then, We may almost
as well let him go on alone altogether after that. Of what use is sympathy
when the struggle is over? Or what use is help when the
battle has been fought through and won without us? Or suppose
the friend was not victorious? Suppose he failed in the battle—failed
because no one came to him to help him? because we did not
come with the sustaining strength of our sympathy. Suppose that
left to struggle unaided with enemies or difficulties or adversities,
he was defeated and sank down, crushed and hopeless. Is there
any use in our hurrying up to him now to offer our assistance?
Is not the time past when help could avail him? Can our sympathy
now enable him to retrieve what he has lost? Can our faithfulness
today atone for our unfaithfulness yesterday? Most of us are in
some way the guardians of other souls. The time to fulfill our
duty of guardianship is when the dangers are imminent. There's
no use for the lookout on the ship to become vigilant only
after the vessel is among the rocks. There's no use for the
sentinel in the time of war to arouse and begin to watch when
the enemy has stolen in and captured the field. Are you your brother's
keeper? Are you set to watch against
danger to his soul? Are you a parent whose duty is
to guard your own children against the perils of sin that lurk in
ambush all about them? Are you a teacher with a class
of young people entrusted to your care to shield and train
and keep? Are you a sister with brothers
dear to you who you are to protect from temptation? Are you a brother,
and have you sisters tender and exposed to danger, whose defender
you should be? Are you a friend, and is there
one beset by perils over whom God has set you as guide or protector? Are you watching, or are you
sleeping? Remember that the time to watch
is before the danger has done its deadly work. When through
your negligence the danger has come and has destroyed the precious
life, you may almost as well sleep on. Watching then ever
so faithfully will not undo the evil which was done. In the preparation
for duty or for struggle in our personal life, the same principle
applies. There is a time for this preparation
when it can be made. And if it is not made then, it
cannot be made at all. It is a rule of providential
leading that opportunity is always given to everyone to prepare
for whatever part he is to take in life, and for whatever experience
he is ordained to meet. The days come to us linked one
to another, so that simple faithfulness today always prepares us for
the duty of tomorrow. All the days are like steps on
a stairway, each one meant to lift our feet and make us ready
for the next. If one only embraces and uses
his opportunities as they come to him one by one, he will never
be surprised by any sudden emergency in life, whether of duty or of
trial, for which he will not be ready. For example, before
life's stern, fierce conflicts which put manhood's strongest
fiber to the test, we have childhood and youth as seasons for calm
preparation. He who rightly improves these
seasons is fully ready for whatever life may bring. It is just because
these opportunities for preparation come to us so quietly and without
announcement not recognized by us at the time as important or
carrying in them any elements of destiny for us, that so many
fail to improve them. The schoolboy does not see what
good it will do him to know the simple things that are set as
his daily tasks, and he neglects to learn them. Twenty or forty
years afterward, he fails in the position to which he is called
because he slurred his boyhood lessons in the quiet school days
long ago. The young apprentice takes no
pains to perfect himself in the trade he has chosen, and consequently
is only a fourth-class workman all his life, while diligence
in youth would have prepared him for highest excellence. The
young professional man dislikes the dry drudgery that the early
years bring to him and neglects it, waiting until some great
opportunity comes to lift him into prominence. The opportunity
comes at length. but he fails in it, because he
has not improved the long series of preparatory steps that came
before. On the other hand, a schoolboy
does every task faithfully. He never slights a lesson. He
goes thoroughly over every day's studies. He does not see any
more than the other of what particular use these things will be to him
when he is a man in active life, nor does he ask. His only care
is to be faithful now in every duty. Years later he rises to
high places which he never could have filled had he slurred his
boyhood's tasks. A physician is suddenly called
to take charge of a critical case requiring the best skill
in the world. He is successful and wins fame
for himself because, in the long, quiet years of obscure practice,
he has been diligent. If he had not been faithful in
those years of routine work, he must have failed when the
great opportunity came. He could not have made the necessary
preparation at the moment when suddenly called to act. The case
could only be met by the instant use of knowledge and skill already
acquired and available. It is a secret worth knowing
and remembering that the truest and indeed the only possible
preparation for life's duties or trials is made by simple fidelity
in whatever each day brings. A day squandered anywhere may
prove the dropped stitch from which the whole web will begin
to unravel. One lesson neglected may prove
to have contained the very knowledge for the lack of which, further
along in the course, the student may fail. One opportunity let
slip may be the first step in a ladder leading to eminence
or power, but no higher rounds of which can be gained, because
the first step was not taken. We never know what is important
for life. or when we are standing at the
open doors of great opportunities in life. The most insignificant
duty that offers may be the first lesson in preparation for a noble
mission. If we despise or neglect it,
we miss the grand destiny, the gate to which was open just for
that one moment. Indeed, every hour of life holds
the keys of the next hour, and possibly of many hours more.
To fail of our duty in any one of them may be to lose the most
splendid opportunity through all life to the end. So the times
of preparation come silently and unawares, and many neglect
them, not knowing what depends upon them, but neglected and
allowed to slip away. they can never be regained. The
man who finds himself in the presence of a great duty or opportunity
which he cannot take up or accept because he is not prepared for
it, cannot then go back to make the needful preparation. The
soldier cannot learn the art of war in the face of the battle. The Christian cannot, in an unexpected
emergency of temptation, gather in a moment all needed spiritual
power. Not to be ready in advance for
great duties or great needs is to fail. The lesson is important
and has infinite applications. You cannot go back today to do
the work you neglected to do yesterday. You cannot make preparation
for life when the burden of life is on you. Opportunities never
return. They must be taken on the wing,
or they cannot be taken at all. There is a time for every duty,
and done at that precise time, its outcomes and results may
be infinite and eternal. But deferred or neglected, it
may never be worthwhile to take it up again. Many of us in our
later years have in our hands only the most pitiful things
of life. withered leaves, faded flowers,
straws, and bits of worthless tinsel. While we can see afar,
in their bright glory, the kingdoms, diadems, and crowns which we
have missed, which might have been ours, had we taken them
when they were offered to us. Let the young learn the lesson
and miss no chance that life brings, and refuse no blessing
which the commonest day presents in whatever plainness of form.
It may be only a dull, dried little seed which is held out
to you, but in it is enfolded a rare, sweet flower, which some
day will fill your room with fragrance, if you accept it. You cannot have the flower then,
unless you take the seed today.