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I. THIS WORD "OPPORTUNITY" SPRINGS FROM AN OLD ROOT SIGNIFYING "AT PORT," or "in the harbour," suggestive of the lines: "There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune." Thus we think of the trader watching the market, ready to pounce upon every opportunity that he may turn it to gold. Thousands fail in life through neglect of such chances. When the Blucher of opportunity presents itself, they have not "pluck" enough to charge, and so win their Waterloo. There are great national opportunities which present themselves once or twice in the lifetime of a country or community and never come again. Such an opportunity the Church of Rome had when some of her most faithful sons pointed out the sins and excesses which led to the Reformation. Such an opportunity the Church of England had in 1662, when she drove out the crown and flower of her ministerial ranks. Such an opportunity France had at the time of the Reformation of ridding herself of a blind superstition on the one hand, and a hopeless atheism on the other. Such an opportunity Jerusalem had nineteen centuries ago; but she spurned it, rejected it, and finally quenched it in the blood of the innocent (Luke 19:41-44).

II. THERE ARE OPPORTUNITIES WHICH BELONG TO CERTAIN PERIODS OF LIFE. There is the season of youth. How full it is of opportunities — for mental improvement, forming good habits, moulding the character, determining on a future line of action. Use it, therefore, as the springtime which soon departeth, and wherein thou oughtest to plant and sow provisions for a long and happy life. Now if this be true with regard to the physical and mental, how much more with regard to the moral and the spiritual! Says the poet: "Heaven lies near us in our infancy." The heart has not become stained and soiled; the conscience has not become seared and hardened. There are no hosannas so sweet to Christ as the hosannas of the young. Others, again, are becoming more advanced in years. Gradually they find themselves farther and farther away from the time "when they were boys" — they have reached the autumn of life. Oh, what opportunities they have had! But while men were busy here and there, the golden opportunity was gone. Consider our opportunities of usefulness. Take the home, e.g., what a splendid chance it presents to Christian parents of influencing their children goodwards at the very gateway of life! And to a certain extent the same thing holds good with regard to visitors. When Lord Peterborough lodged with Fenelon for a season, he said, on leaving, "After this I shall be a Christian in spite of myself." Or possibly you occupy a position in some place of business, and one morning a child with a distressed look comes to say that "father is very ill, and cannot come to-day." Next morning an intimation reaches you that he is dead. Instantly a "still, small voice" within whispers reproachfully, "I have never in all these years spoken one word to this man about Divine things. I have lost an opportunity that will never return." Oh, there is a day coming when these lost opportunities will appear in a clearer light and with more terrible and startling distinctness. "Because I have called and ye refused," etc. (Proverbs 1:24-28). "Consequences are unpitying." So, then, as we have opportunity, let us work that which is good toward all men, and especially toward them that are of the household of the faith.

(J. Dymond.)

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KJV: Now I will come unto you, when I shall pass through Macedonia: for I do pass through Macedonia.

WEB: But I will come to you when I have passed through Macedonia, for I am passing through Macedonia.