Article September 4, 1902 Issue

Conservation of the Moments

Frances Ridley Havergal

Are not the moments the tiny joints in the harness through which the darts of temptation pierce us ? Only give us time, we think, and we should not be overcome. Only give us time, and we could pray and resist, and the devil would flee from us! But he comes all in a moment; and in a moment — an unguarded, unkept one — we utter the hasty or exaggerated word, or think the un-Christlike thought, or feel the un-Christlike impatience or resentment. It is generally a moment — either an opening or a culminating one — that really does the work.

The view of moments seems to make it clearer that it is impossible to serve two masters, for it is evident that the service of a moment cannot be divided. If it is occupied in the service of self, or any other master, it is not at the Lord's disposal; He cannot make use of what is already occupied. . . . While we cannot realize the infinite love which fills eternity, and the infinite vistas of the great future are "dark with excess of light" even to the strongest telescopes of faith, we see that love magnified in the microscope of the moments, brought very close to us, and revealing its unspeakable perfection of detail to our wondering sight. But we do not see this as long as the moments are kept in our own hands. We are like little children closing our fingers over diamonds. How can they receive and reflect the rays of light, analyzing them into all the splendors of their prismatic beauty, while they are kept shut up tight in the dirty little hands ? Give them up; let our Father hold them for us, and throw His own great light upon them, and then we shall see them full of fair colors of His manifold lovingkindness; and let Him always keep them for us, and then we shall always see His light and His love reflected in them. And then, surely, they shall be filled with praise, the praise that is the tone, the color, the atmosphere in which they flow; none of them away from it or out of it.

Frances Ridley Havergal.

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