56 



Degraded Words. 



pressions for the indefinite by-and-by, as in Matthew xiii, 26: " Yet 

 hath he not root in himself, for when tribulation or persecution 

 ariseth because of the word," not " hy-and-hy^'' but ixstantly* " he is 

 offended," does not hold out at all — makes no effort for a single 

 moment to breast the current! Again, Mark vi., 25: "And she 

 came in straightway with haste unto the king, and asked, saying, 

 I will that thou give me," not ''^hy-and-hy^^ but as soon as pos- 

 siBLE "in a charger, the head of John the Baptist." Finally, 

 Luke xxi, 9: " But when ye shall hear of wars and commotions, be 

 not terrified, for these things must first come to pass, but the end is 

 not" — immediately. And if the gradual fading out of the original 

 intense emphasis of these words is largely due, as every considera- 

 tion seems to render probable, to the fact that people have so often 

 said they would do things " presently " or "by-and-by," and then 

 have neglected them, so that in process of time the idea of more or 

 less delay has become tlioroughly involved in the common under- 

 standing of the words themselves — what a commentary does it fur- 

 nish upon the prevalence of this habit of procrastination, that these 

 terms, once the strongest that could be found to picture hurried and 

 impatient action, have come at last, as indisputably in ordinary usage 

 they have, to denote so vaguely an indefinite period, at an indefinite 

 distance, in the indefinite and uncertain future ! 



