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Show REDEEMING THE TIME np HE chemistry building is full i today," an undergraduate said to me late In May as we were walking past that structure. "What's the show?" I asked. "Oh, It's the loafers and the pro-crastlnators pro-crastlnators trying to make up for lost time. A good lot of fellows plan to do most of their work the last three weeks of the semester." It is a misconception not confined to youth that if you let opportunity go by you, you can catch her easily by cutting round the corner. "My son failed In two subjects last semester," a father wrote to me this week. "Since he has now got the hang of the college, will It not be possible next semester for him to carry these two subjects In addition to his regular course? The subjects he failed In ought to be easy for him now." Having carried car-ried but half their work one semester, most loafers feel confident that they can easily carry four times as much the next. "I can make It up before the end of the semester." "When I get out of college I shall find time for all these things." "After I am married I intend to cut out all my bad habits." How familiar these things sound. It seems a simple matter to redeem our lost time. If we have social or Intellectual or moral delinquencies we expect, all of us, to atona for them in the near future, and the longer we put It off the easier, often, It seems of accomplishment. accom-plishment. Every sinner condones his evil life by promising himself that he will ere long become a saint ; every loafer expects ex-pects soon to brace up and get down to ht,rd work and win success. Every Intellectual delinquent looks forward to the time when his studies will be creditably completed; every failure sits in the shade and dreams of the time when he will have become a world-beater. We all expect, no matter mat-ter how late the day. to redeem the lost opportunity; but It is next to Impossible. Im-possible. There Is not a young person today. If he amounts to anything, who will ever have as much leisure time as he has at this moment, who will ever have as. easy a chance to be wise iind good and happy as he has today. The time and the opportunity that are lost are seldom. If ever, redeemed. Those who wait until the last to do their work, to make their reforms, usually fall. It Is an old. old cry, this: "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and I an: not saved." The time tht U lost Is seldom, If ever, redeemed. |
