What a wonderful gift of God is a day!--day with all its opportunities to live and to do; to affect, to completely [227] change, destiny; to reverse the judgment and sentence upon all the past; to make up lacks and pay debts and to tear down the false and to lay the foundation of the true, or go on building if the foundation be already laid. To the sinner, a space in which judgment is deferred and full mercy offered--a privilege and opportunity which in the hour of supreme need makes all the world look paltry in comparison. To the saint, a new lease to express in word and godly deed his love to the Father in heaven and his devotion to the Savior; a chance to help another; to bless, to heal, to comfort, to save; to fulfill his ministry and run his course; to lay up treasure in heaven; to draw nearer to God. Such is the priceless gift of a day. This is that which you have wasted and despised and misused against your own soul. O ye who read this today, be glad you are alive and that God's long-suffering has given you this day--and use it, use it to the full!

      Of all the days that ever have been or ever will be, the one called "Today," this one now, which looks most common and prosaic and seems to have no particular excellence or value, is greatest. Your thoughts stray back to the past, and you can think of great days, important days, days you would give the world to recall. Those were times! Then you had chances; doors stood open; fate hung in the balance; life awaited but your signal to frown or smile forever. There are no more such days now. O, if you could, with your present experience and wisdom, go back and make your decisions over! Thus memory throws its sad regret, and withal a romantic halo, over the past and gilds it with a glory it never possessed when it was called the present. Or perhaps the future will bring something great again--a crisis, an unexpected [228] fortune, an opportunity for great deeds, a chance to retrieve yourself. And you dream of some royal hour, yet unborn in the womb of Time, that shall offer you the prizes of earth and heaven. Meanwhile there slips away from you the day of all days, the royal day that is yours; traveling incognito, in modest garb, but of all days most precious, the one God gives you now, and which holds in itself all the possibilities of time and eternity. Be not deceived--this, this alone is your day, your great, precious day. If you need to repent; if a wrong needs to be righted; if a new turn is to be taken; if a great deed is to be done; if God is to be glorified; if your work is to be accomplished--why shall not today witness it? Why let the weight and the gloom of yesterdays paralyze you? Be of good cheer; arise, come, He calleth thee. Why delude your soul in dreaming of tomorrow? Tomorrow, when it comes, nay, if it ever comes to you, will be just a quiet, unpretentious, commonplace "today." And by looking back and peering ahead you lose the most precious thing God gives you--today. "Today if ye shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts." (Heb. 3:7, 8.) "Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation." (2 Cor. 6:2.)

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