d habits,
till next Sunday. We know not how few fragments of our life remain.
As says a Bishop of our Church, "they who dare lose a day are
prodigals, but those who dare misspend it are desperate. Time is the
seed of eternity, the less that remains the more valuable it becomes.
To squander time is to squander all." The events of one brief day have
often influenced a whole life, aye, a whole eternity. The flight of a
bird determined the career of Mohammed; a spider's spinning that of
Bruce; and a tear in his mother's eye that of Washington. Voltaire,
when only five years old, committed to memory an infidel poem, and grew
to live and die an unbeliever; whilst Doddridge, as a child, studied
the Bible from the pictured tiles at the fireside explained by his
mother. Use the moments, the fragments, that remain, and so begin this
Advent season rightly, your lamp burning, the works of darkness cast
away, the armour of light girded on. But not only must we look
forward, the end of the Church's year is a fitting time for looking
back. Some of us can do so joyfully, thankfully, peacefully. Week by
week the teachings of Holy Church have shown them the life of duty, and
they feel that they have tried to live that life by the help of God's
Holy Spirit. The first half of the year's teaching showed us God's
love for us, the second half taught us how we can show our love to God.
Last Advent told us of the battle of life, the good fight of the faith,
and the love of God strengthening us in the conflict, and promising the
crown of victory. Christmas brought us once more the dear, glad,
tidings that Jesus is our brother, bone of our bone, and flesh of our
flesh. Epiphany showed us our Saviour manifested in our work, in the
changed character of a believer who out of weakness is made strong, in
the cleansed sinner whose leprosy is healed, in the storm of life made
calm. The star of Epiphany led us to Jesus, to hope, to rejoicing, and
gladly we offered our gifts, to the King our gold, to the Great High
Priest our incense, to the Crucified our myrrh. Lent showed us the
sterner side of the life of duty, and brought its lessons of
self-denial and self-restraint. Those of us who went out into the
wilderness of this world with Jesus, "glad with Him to suffer pain,"
resisting the tempter, found their reward at the glad Easter-tide. The
sorrow which had endured for the night of Lent gave place to the joy
which came with Easter morning