The Duty of Deciding

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 20, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 32.

The Duty of Deciding

SCARCELY less important than the duty of considering well any proposed course of action, before deciding upon it, is the duty of deciding upon it when it has been considered. Some people are so far from needing the warning of the popular maxim, "Look before you leap," that they look so long that they never come to leap at all. It is a good deal better to make decisions which sometimes lead to good success and sometimes to ill success, than never to make any decision, and so never to reach anything or anywhere. It is perfectly possible to use up so much time considering which of two enterprises we can most advantageously take up, that a quicker neighbor may carry through first the one and then the other, before we have made up our mind to take up either. This is a disastrous mistake. It is well to consider, to ask advice, to weigh counsel; but all that is useless without the decision which ought to follow close upon it. If you had the years of Methuselah, you might be able to afford to push off a decision for a century or so; but life in these days is short, and time is flying.—Sel.