The Abbeville Press And Banner

THOUGHTS FOR THE NIGHT.

"The night cometh, when no man can work."

It cometh: the night cometh, "when no man can work."

It neareth; yes, it neareth; the setting of brief day is done.

Oh, short the time for labor; so much to do ere set the sun!

Of moments swiftly flying we soon shall see the last.

How stealthily the shadows are stretching o'er the plain!

The setting sun is hasting to hide behind the main.

Oh, use each passing moment; the day is almost run!

It cometh; the night cometh, when work cannot be done.

It sinketh: the sun sinketh, yet lower and yet lower.

The golden light remaining but tells where the sun has set.

Then ended: yes, then ended the time for fruitful toil.

The precious hours have vanished: say, have you tilled the soil?

The crimsoned clouds still lingering, presage a brighter morn

For faithful ones awaiting their Lord's assured return;

By talents used in trading they may have won,

And for the reckoning tarry, expect His "Well done!"

See, waning is that splendor; the fleeting loveliness

Is fading into twilight; and this night, grey Jesu,

But nearing is the morning, the bright, long looked-for day,

When Christ's approving welcome will all our toil repay.

Rev. John Woods Ballard, in Pittsburgh Christian Advocate.

Wise Precaution?

"Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing befall thee."—John v., 14.

Wickedness never heals itself but goes on from bad to worse till the last state is worse than the first.

None of us intends to go on continually in his besetting sin, nor to indulge in vice to the bitter end.

Blindness and weakness say usually: "Once more, just this once more" or "For the last time, the last time."

Captain A. remarked when told that an old friend of whom he had inquired was still drinking heavily: "Ah, never to quit, never to quit!" and spoke wisely; but no doubt his old friend had overheard it he would have stoutly disputed the sad comment.

Most of us would be shocked if told we would never quit our evil course. If one should say to us today, "Twenty-five years from now you will be doing this same thing and worse," or "You'll end a drug slave in the asylum" or "You'll die drunk," or "You'll continue a libertine and be devoured by loathsome disease," or, "You're going right on in this crookedness till you end in crime, exposure and the river" we would be shocked and refuse to believe it.

Yet it is true that there is always deadly danger of permanent entanglement in sin after it is begun. As the taste which brought you dyspepsia continues to cry for more sauces and sweets, so the passions and lusts that led to the first deadly sin cease not to urge its repetition. Not only so, but evil being gregarious a sin soon gathers a company "more evil than itself" and they enter in and dwell there. Escape from this state is not in the pools and potions of the world, but in the healing of the Great Physician, whose restoration enables us to assert and help ourselves, and whose safeguard for the future is "Sin no more."

Grave mistakes deliberately repeated are inexcusable. "The first time I was taken in by that fellow it was his fault, but if he fools me again it'll be my fault." So might we say "of the devil," after he has tripped us once, and as "a burned child dreads the fire," every soul that has once escaped from the clutch of sin should wisely dread and shun it. A Government inspector told me that he once thrust his revolver in the face of a man who had grossly insulted him. Realizing how near he had come to killing a fellow man he put his pistol away and determined never to carry it again. Should a man do less with a dangerous associate or habit when he realizes what it may lead him to do? I know a young Kentuckian who would never return to the race track after attending once with his father to see their own horses run because the wild excitement he felt that day warned him that he could not afford to take the risk of becoming a race gambler for life. Such men are helping themselves, and evil flees from them.

Playing fast and loose with the better way spells failure for many who start in it whose plans were noble and whose hopes were high. The dead inventor's loft, full of half finished models told the pitiful story of his inefficiency and explained his failure.

"Go thy way, from henceforth sin no more * * lest a worse thing befall thee." This is wisdom from on high.

Let us sincerely strive with Him for the best things. He helps us to our feet and calls us to take up our burden of responsibility and carry it through the world. Serving mankind and in fellowship with Him who heals and champions it, let us go bravely on our way with high hearts and steadfast trust, so living out the rugged hours that at evening each hard won day will stand as a smiling prophecy of the ultimate triumph we shall achieve at the end of the life intrusted to us. — Rev. C. Q. Wright, Chaplain U. S. Navy, in the New York Herald.

Education Through Faith.

Our Lord says that truth makes us free. The world of truth is a world of infinite extent, of infinite resource, where what one possesses does not take away from another. These things have to be believed; they cannot be understood unless we have for years walked towards them, striven to attain them. All education is through faith. The individual must be made to believe that it is a divine thing to have a cultivated mind.