Page:The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany.djvu/40

12 may be necessary for this purpose,” and this of course carried the implication that work should be commenced as soon as the money in hand justified the letting of contracts.

The spontaneous and liberal donations which enabled those having the work in charge to secure the large parcel of land adjoining The Mother Church, gives promise of the speedy accumulation of a sum sufficient to justify the decision of these remaining problems. Each person interested must remember, however, that his individual desires, both as to the amount to be expended and the date of commencing work, will be best evidenced by the liberality and promptness of his own contribution.

This was an emphatic rule of St. Paul: “Behold, now is the accepted time.” A lost opportunity is the greatest of losses. Whittier mourned it as what “might have been.” We own no past, no future, we possess only now. If the reliable now is carelessly lost in speaking or in acting, it comes not back again. Whatever needs to be done which cannot be done now, God prepares the way for doing; while that which can be done now, but is not, increases our indebtedness to God. Faith in divine Love supplies the ever-present help and now, and gives the power to “act in the living present.”

The dear children's good deeds are gems in the settings of manhood and womanhood. The good they desire to