WHILE YE HAVE THE LIGHT.
By Percy T. OdeKirk
While ye have the light, walk in the light. Present privileges are for present improvement; but we are very prone to neglect the present while thinking of the future or of the past. We look backward with sorrow as we remember our failures and neglects. We look forward with hope, and dream of better days and more extended usefulness; but on the present, the only time which is ours, and which enwraps within itself all our opportunities, we look with comparative indifference. To-day the light of revelation, of providence, of the Holy Spirit, the light of life, are shining on our path. Now, while we have the light, let us walk in it. Now, while we have the opportunity, let us improve it. Now, while the commands of God are laid upon us, let us obey them from the heart. How suddenly our circumstances may change! The light which we neglected may be taken from us. Sickness, poverty, adversity, may come. Pain may prostrate, and death strike home to the heart, and all our opportunities be past. Now, affords us every privilege, but the hereafter may be as barren as Sahara. The antediluvians refused to walk in the light when they had the light, but when the flood came, how glad would they have been could they have shared the privileges that Noah enjoyed. The Sodomites had light, but refused to walk in it, and were destroyed with fire from heaven. The chosen people of God neglected the light that was given them, wandered in darkness, and stumbled upon the dark mountains, and while they looked for light, it became gross darkness, and was turned into the shadow of death. The world to-day are rejecting Christ who is the light and life of men. They have the light, but refuse it; they see it, but will not walk in it. What a day shall come when God shall call men to account for the light which they have received, but rejected and refused. May God help us now, in the living present, to walk faithfully and steadfastly in the light we have received, and bring us at last to dwell with Christ who is the light and life of men.