Article December 24, 1932 Issue

"The accepted time"

[Written Especially for Young People]

MARY H. CUMMINS

When we are asked to render some service to another, perhaps to go on an errand or to perform some little duty in the household, how frequently there seems to arise a disinclination to do the thing immediately! Something seems to whisper that half an hour or an hour hence, or perhaps even tomorrow, would do just as well, and that it would be much more easily done if we could put it off a little while.

But let us think for a moment how much pleasanter it might be for the one who made the request if our response were prompt and gracious. For one thing it would avoid the necessity of our being asked again and again that this particular thing should be done; and we ourselves would know the joy of having responded quickly and lovingly to a fair request. In such ways can we fulfill the Golden Rule, and help to make daily living easier and pleasanter and more joyous for one another.

There is, perhaps, no connection in which this suggestion of putting things off seems to be more persistent than in that of our daily study of the Lesson-Sermon. The thought may come, possibly in the morning, that now would be a good opportunity to read the Lesson or at least a part of it. But immediately there may arise the suggestion that just then we have not sufficient time, and that noontime will do just as well. When noontime comes we may find it filled with other things; and so our reading is put off until the evening. Then there are studies, or we want to be out of doors, and when at length we do take up the Bible and "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, it is perhaps to find that sleepiness is making itself felt; and so our day has been robbed of a great happiness and blessing.

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