JEAN INGELOW has a sweet little story about opportunity — the golden, the silver, and the copper — as they came to a child. I have a few words to say about the golden opportunities that come to all.
A man rose in a prayer meeting one night, and told how for long years he had never bent his knee in supplication, when the question of a little Sunday scholar, his daughter, made him think and turn to God. “Papa, do you pray?” the darling had said, her blue eyes looking straight into his own. It was her golden opportunity, and God blessed it to her father, and to many more, for he is now an active worker for the Master, and a teacher whose efforts have been crowned with success.
“I want to speak to you about your soul,” said a student to his classmate, putting his arm through his, as they sauntered over the campus. He had been days gathering courage to speak in just that frank, cordial way, to his friend, whose brilliant talents were not consecrated. “I have been wishing you would, and wondering why you did not,” was the reply, “I am in trouble about my soul.”
Here was a golden opportunity that he had not even suspected. Servant of Christ, there may be some one near you, in trouble, longing for you to say a word, amazed that you are silent. Be up and doing! “The King’s business requireth haste.”
“Won’t you say a word to my husband about Jesus?” said a wife to the lady who had come in a friendly way to look after the little son, a Sunday-school boy. “How can I?” thought the lady, dreading to intrude upon a stranger, uncertain of the treatment she might receive. She prayed over it, and then said earnestly, after a few words about the children, “Don’t think I am taking too much upon myself, but I want to know why you don’t follow the dear Saviour?” She was surprised to see the horny hand dash away the tears, while the man, with a faltering voice, replied, “It is over twenty years since I’ve entered a church, till last Sunday, and then my boy took me to yours. I thank you for coming to talk to me.”
Fellow teachers, we are not doing all we might for Christ. The harvest is plenteous. The laborers are few. Opportunities are around us all the time. Do we seize the golden ones?
M.E.S.