Article November 26, 1932 Issue

The Demand of the Hour

ETHEL COLWELL SMITH

THE fact that the length of time known as a day is subdivided into shorter intervals known as hours tends often to serve as a subtle excuse for postponement or procrastination. It is easy to say, What are fifteen minutes, or twenty, or fifty? and then waste them in unprofitable occupation. With frequency comes also the inertia that allows the effort to realize good to be put off ten minutes, or thirty, or forty. Indolence, fear, doubt, caution—all take their turn in the role of tempter, and it requires alertness to recognize their false arguments and reject them. One who would not think of procrastination when considered in terms of half or whole days, or weeks or months, may find it worth while to check up on his hours and minutes, odd intervals here and there through the day, and see to what extent they are being used and for what purpose. It affords a pleasant surprise, when one begins to catch up these scattered bits of time and turn them to account, to find how much has been accomplished, and how it overcomes that old complaint—lack of time.

When Jesus was conversing with a woman at Jacob's well, he said, "But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth." That he was using each moment to the best spiritual purpose was proved later when he told the disciples, "I have meat to eat that ye know not of," and said that this meat was to do the will of God. Then Jesus rebuked the belief of any necessity for procrastination in the realization of good, for them, as well as for us today: "Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? . . . Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest."

The prophet Malachi said, "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it." In commenting on this passage, Mrs. Eddy says in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (pp. 131, 132), "There is with us at this hour this great, great blessing; and may I say with the consciousness of Mind that the fulfilment of divine Love in our lives is the demand of this hour—the special demand." This meat which was essential for God's house, and which so sustained the Master, is "the fulfilment of divine Love in our lives;" and as it is not only "the demand of this hour" but "the special demand," there can be no apathetic moments allowed, nor even slight deviation from righteousness and truth.

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