Responsibility and Opportunity
THE measure of man's responsibility is his opportunities. A young man placed under the care of an efficient and attentive tutor to learn German, refused to attend to instruction. At the expiration of a year his father, finding him unable to read the simplest passage in that language, censured him very severely. The censure was deserved. The son was responsible for his ignorance, because it was the fruit of neglected opportunity. Richard Watson applies this principle to a man in his relation to God and the gospel, pithily remarking that "God holds every one guilty of the violation of all that he is by nature and habit unable to perform, if the remedy—the gospel—be neglected." To despise the gracious opportunities of to-day, is to invite the fearful retribution which in eternity is inseparable from guilt which the sinner would not, when in time, wash away in the blood of Christ.—Zion's Herald.