Wasted Opportunities

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 8, 1883

Wasted Opportunities.

It is laughable to see one hunting high and low for his spectacles when they have been only shoved up over his forehead. But it is not laughable to see Christians hunting for what they call opportunities to honor God, while overlooking such opportunities which they carry with them wherever they go. A slovenly carpenter was once heard at a weekly prayer-meeting to pray with great fervency for the spread of Christ's cause—a cause which he disgraced and hindered in his sphere every time he stood at his work-bench.

When he ended his prayer, a hearty "Amen" came from a servant who put her mistress out of temper a hundred times a day by her carelessness.

A clerk also was there, who, although he taught a class in the mission-school on Sundays, was always late at his employer's store week-days. He whispered "Amen!" too—and meant it, so far as he knew himself. A lady hearer, as she listened, resolved to join the church missionary society, and then went home and found unreasonable fault with her cook. And others also felt warmed to do something for Christ, who never seemed to have thought that religion, like charity, begins at home. The mechanic, who is powerful in class-meeting, and weak at his trade, is no credit to the cause he professes. The servant, who drops tears feelingly at religious services, and drops dishes unfeelingly in the kitchen, has her tenderness altogether too much on one side. And it is a poor kind of religion which seeks opportunities to set others straight, but overlooks its own crookedness.—S. S. Times.