Improvement of Time
There is nothing more necessary for our future welfare than the improvement of time. Our time is too valuable to be spent in idleness. If we wish to be respected, we must be industrious; and to be industrious we must know how to value our time. Every moment must be spent as we should wish it had been when we come to years of discretion. There are many things that we can busy ourselves in doing that will fill up a few leisure moments, and perhaps it will do some good. If we are poor, we can relieve our parents in trying to assist them in the daily labors and toils of life, for hard must be the lot of that toil-worn father, and care-worn mother, who have a numerous family to maintain by their daily labor, all careless and indifferent of their hardships and fatigues. If we are rich, we can make those happy around us by the thousand nameless attentions which the hand of industry alone can supply. Therefore, whatever our situation in life may be, the good improvement of our time will not only tend to promote our usefulness, but our happiness. Take for instance a man who has indulged in habits of indolence from his childhood, and see what it has brought him to. He has been in the habit of lounging about the streets unemployed, or perhaps watching for opportunities for mischief; step by step he descends in his moral degradation; vice succeeds folly, till a dark catalogue of crimes brings him to a drunkard's grave. State prison, or the gallows. While, on the other hand, take a man who has been accustomed to labor and toil for his daily food, and see how much more he is respected, and what a difference there is in the lives of those two men. The one is beloved and respected, and the other is miserable and degraded.
The industrious man begins life, and perhaps has no better prospects before him than his companion; but see how much better he ends life than the other. He begins to climb the ladder of science, and by perseverance, he will soon reach the top round, and he can not do this unless he improves his time.
We have ample proof that unless we improve our time we can not be happy or respected, and when we have a feeling of indolence come over us, we must shake it off and try to arouse our energies, and we must bear in mind that for every idle moment we must give an account at the bar of God on the judgment day, before God and man.
Lines, Written on the Death of Frank.
For their darling boy they weep,--
For their beautiful and bright,
Who sweetly fell asleep,
One mild, autumnal night,
And the wind his requiem sang,
As his spirit passed away,
From this world of toil and pain,
To the realms of endless day.They bore him to the grave,--
To his long and silent home,
Where the trees in summer wave.
And the birds and blossoms come;--
Where the sunlight faintly creeps,
And the autumn breezes moan,
There the loved one softly sleeps,
In his chamber dark and lone.Now vacant is the chair,
At the table and the hearth,--
They miss him everywhere,
With the voice of joy and mirth.
They seek for him in vain,
In the chamber where he lay,
Through weary months of pain,
Wasting slowly, day by day.He sweetly fell asleep,
As an infant sinks to rest,
When sunlight shadows creep.
Along the rosy west.
Gently as falls the rose,
Fanned by the zephyr's breath,
So his eyelids softly closed,
In the quiet sleep of death.He has gone to his rest;
Oh! weep not for the dead,--
For the loved and the lost
Let no bitter tears be shed.
We trust that he has gone.
With the glorified to dwell,
And say, "God's will be done--
He doeth all things well."
The Pleasures of Memory.
Memory is a choice gift bestowed on man. It is a boundless source of pleasure to most all persons, unless their lives have been fraught with crimes of so daring a nature, that it makes the the heart revolt at the very thought of them. It is pleasant at times to revert to the scenes of by-gone days, and recall one beloved companion and another, that have passed away, and to think of the many happy interviews we have held with them.
It is necessary for the scholar to improve his memory, that he may retain what he learns; that it may be of use to him at some future time; that he may receive the reward he has anxiously sought for. It is pleasant to the aged to recall the scenes that have long since slumbered in oblivion, and awaken from the hallowed precincts of the dead, thoughts of friends with whom they were wont to associate in their early days, and retrace the sports of their childhood, when health and activity nerved their limbs, and happiness filled their bosoms.
It is pleasant to look back upon past pleasures, to recall the beautiful scenes we have once witnessed, the smile of friendship, the tear of sympathy, the glance of affection, the tone of love, or to listen again to the thrilling sounds of soul-enrapturing music, that has once delighted us. But so varied is our pathway of life, that a thorough retrospection must ever be fraught with sad as well as pleasing reflection. Is memory thus faithful to her trust? Then how necessary that we should improve each moment, as it glides along into the unbounded ocean of eternity, that it may bear a good record to the future hour. And, O, how necessary that we should so spend our lives, that when we come to be laid upon our death-bed, in the last agonies of expiring nature, if reason does not forsake her throne, and memory still proves true to her trust, it may bring up the pleasing recollection that life has been well spent.