he future.
We are stewards in possession still, but under warning; do we employ the
time and the opportunities that remain in making our calling and
election sure?

Many precious possessions have been placed in our hands by the owner of
all; health of body and soundness of mind; home and friends; good name
or great riches, or both conjoined;--these and many others have been by
their owner placed under our charge, that we should lay them out for
him. Soon the stewardship will be taken from us. "When ye fail,"--that
is, when we can no longer retain our hold of time and life; when flesh
and heart are failing; when a mist comes over the eye, so that it can no
longer see the circle of weeping friends that stand round the bed of
death,--have we an everlasting habitation ready to receive the departing
spirit?

More particularly the practical question is, Have we disposed of earthly
possessions and opportunities, so that they helped and did not hinder
the acquisition of an incorruptible inheritance?

There is a place and a use for temporal things in making sure of the
life eternal. How constant has been the tendency of fallen humanity to
run wildly into opposite extremes of error; because the Popish system
gives worldly possessions too high a place in the concerns of the soul,
we may readily fall into the error of giving them no place at all. We
lean hard over against the superstition that expects by alms, and money
paid for masses, to smooth the spirit's path to peace beyond the grave;
but when we have refused to make money directly the price of our
admission into heaven, we have not exhausted our duty in regard to its
bearing on our eternal weal. The property, and money, and occupations of
time may instrumentally affect for good or evil our efforts to lay up
the true riches. According as they are employed, they may become a
stumbling-stone over which their possessor shall fall, or a shield to
cover his head from some fiery darts of the wicked one.[91]

[91] For example, their competence and the comforts which it brings
shield women of the higher and middle classes in this country, in a
great measure, from certain snares of the devil in which multitudes
of their poorer sisters miserably fall. If those who enjoy this
protection throw away their advantage by turning that which is a
protection on one side into a temptation on the other, and so bring
themselves to an equality over all with the less favoured class