The Month of March. St. Joseph, Tr. by Lady Herbert (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1872 Excerpt: ... time too which He has placed at our disposition belongs to us no more than do riches or pleasures; our very impossibility to stop its march proves the truth of this. How are we to define time? An imperceptible point between two eternities. The moment in which I am speaking is already gone for ever. 'An hour strikes, we count the hours only after they are lost.' (Young.) Gold is less precious than time; the former can but procure for us the goods of this world, whilst the latter is the coin with which we may purchase eternity. Are we not, then, most foolish? We treasure up our gold; we think we have done a meritorious action if we give away a few pieces of it; and we throw away our time without the smallest compunction, heedlessly giving it to whoever asks for it, and often to those who have no right to it. We have too much time; we don't know what to do with it; hence the expression, so often used to show what our feelings are with regard to this precious gift, to kill time. 'One would imagine we were speaking of some universal enemy to the human race, against which all mankind had combined to conspire. Life would seem but one continual endeavour to get rid of it. Those men are esteemed the happiest who the least appear to feel its weight and duration; and the great charm both of frivolous pleasures and of serious occupations appears to be that they shorten the length of the days and minutes, and seem to rid us of them almost without our being ourselves aware that they have passed away.' (Massillon.) Time is a treasure, but it weighs upon us; it gives us a feeling of weariness, and we are bored by it. Yet there will come a moment when we shall in vain wish to recall the days, the hours, and the minutes which we have so recklessly thrown away on our frivoli...