March 20

“Moses made an end of speaking.” — Deut 32:45

So we all shall do some day. Moses knew it was the end for him; we may not know when our end is at hand. Any word of ours, spoken amid glee and merriment, may be our last!! If we always thought of this–would it not make us more careful? Would we ever say an unkind word to a friend, if we felt that we may never have an opportunity to unsay it or repent of it? Would we ever utter an angry, untrue, or unclean word–if we only remembered that it may be the last utterance our lips shall give forth?

We want to have beautiful endings to our life, to leave sweet memories behind us in the hearts of those who love us. We want our names to be fragrant in the homes on whose thresholds our footfalls are accustomed to be heard. We want the memory of our last words in our friends’ ears–to live as a tender joy with them as the days pass away. We can be sure of all this–only by making every word we speak beautiful enough to be a last word. For with any sentence–we may come to the end of our speaking.