One of the things that forcibly strikes visitors from Continental Europe to the United States is the waste seen everywhere. Not only do they behold with wonder the food-whole loaves of bread, with buns, and perfectly sound vegetables-thrown into the garbage cans, but on the streets and public dumps they see with amazement coal and firewood being wasted. This form of waste is intentional and the result of extravagance. God with lavish hand has filled the land with His temporal bounties, and His creature, man, the unworthy recipient, ruthlessly wastes and destroys what he cannot consume-and holds himself guiltless.

But there is another form of waste, or loss, of which I wish particularly to speak. Precious stones such as diamonds, emeralds, rubies, with pearl necklaces, silverware, gold and platinum rings, rolls of greenbacks, and other valuables of similar nature, are constantly being thrown into waste-paper baskets and garbage cans, the Street Cleaning Commissioner of one of our great cities says. So great is the loss (or waste, rather, one might say) that one city is paid almost a quarter of a million dollars a year for the privilege of salvaging such articles from municipal dumps, while much more is probably never discovered, and is either burned in the incinerating plants, dumped into the sea, or buried in the various fills where such rubbish is disposed of.

A butcher, fearing bandits, placed $350.00 in bills in a paper sack, which he hid in the rubbish container in his shop till he could deposit it in the bank. During a brief absence the garbage collector had called; and when the butcher returned the contents of his can were on their way to the incinerator. Only after the most desperate efforts was the money found, crumpled up in a ball inside the greasy paper sack.

The above facts are intended only as a suited background for a word of exhortation concerning waste and loss of time and opportunity among Christians. "Redeeming the time because the days are evil," is the admonition of the apostle (Eph. 5:16). How much valuable time, minutes, days, weeks, months, aye, years with some, are wasted, lost, and that for ever. We are redeemed by Christ, and this being so, we are as much responsible to Him for the proper use of our time as the employee of any master is to him; and what honest clerk or mechanic would willingly waste the time of his employer? He is paid by him for his services, his time, and to fritter it away unprofitably is unrighteous; and such conduct is to be condemned.

If this be so with "masters after the flesh," shall those who belong to Christ be excused from using every moment of time at their disposal for the furtherance of the kingdom of God on earth? Yet, we repeat, how many hours, more precious than the gold that perisheth, are by Christians wasted, lost for ever. "Gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost," the Master said in reference to the loaves; and if this be so in reference to bread for the body, how much more necessary it is to lose nothing that will minister to the soul, either our own or that of others. Of all the waste of which the world is guilty, that of time is perhaps the most reprehensible; and in the case of the Christian the guilt is enhanced by the fact of his being the Lord's, bought with His precious blood, and admonished in His Word that "the time is short."

Then there is the waste of means, too, with many of the Lord's redeemed. How much is spent on that which is "but to the satisfying of the flesh." Expensive articles of luxury are purchased with money that could and should be expended in the interests of the kingdom of God. Immense sums in the aggregate are spent by Christians on that which is to no real profit, and which in many cases they would be far better off without. How many hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent by believers on the vanity of dress alone, to say nothing of the "pride of life" displayed in the luxurious furnishing of homes, and that by those who, many of them, in their earlier life knew nothing of these things.

Take, too, the matter of eating. What sums are worse than squandered on the tables of many who should know and do better; instead of a sufficient quantity of plain wholesome food, with what lavish expenditure do some furnish their tables with the most expensive delicacies of the season. Voluntary frugality for the Lord's sake seems to be a lost virtue with the great majority of saints today. A devoted lady missionary, now with the Lord, told me that once when on furlough home she was taken by a Christian friend to an expensive restaurant; and when she saw the size of the tip alone, she could not help thinking of how much good that sum might accomplish on the mission field whence she came.

Mr. Darby was once seen munching some plain oatmeal cookies in a second class coach on his way to a conference in Canada; and when spoken to about the simplicity of his fare, he remarked with his customary cheerfulness, "Oh, it does not take much to keep body and soul together for a few short years." Nor does it; and apart from the waste, how much better off in body, to say nothing of the spirit, would many believers be if they ate less to the indulgence of animal appetite and more "to the glory of God." There would be less expended on medical doctors, and specialists, but the gospel and its interests would be the richer, as well as their own souls in the blessed experience of living less unto themselves and more "unto Him who died for them and rose again."

If there were less of such waste in the lives of the people of God, they would be laying up for themselves a rich store for the time to come, treasure in heaven, to be received by them when they entered into "the everlasting habitations" (See Luke 16:9).

It is in immediate connection with the subject of giving that the Lord by the apostle gives the necessary, if little quoted, warning of Galatians 6:7,8:"Be not deceived; God is not mocked:for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." Sowing to the flesh here is not of necessity that which is ordinarily looked upon as sinful, as "sowing wild oats," loose living, and the like; it is rather the indulgence of the flesh along the lines above indicated, selfish gratification in the matter of eating, dress, pleasure-seeking, "the pride of life," etc. And such sowing but brings corruption; all goes to waste, and when eternity is reached there is nothing left but a memory of regret.

To sow to the Spirit, on the other hand, is to spend our energies, our time, our resources, for the furtherance of the Spirit's interests, not only in our own souls, but in the souls of others also, both of the saved and unsaved-And in doing this we shall "reap life everlasting," not only in the world to come, but here and now, in fuller enjoyment of that which is really life, "of life in Christ Jesus." C. Knapp