Life and Conduct

by J. Cameron Lees

10 )
Night to ) Sleep.
4 )

It is evident that a scheme of life like this could not suit everyone. It is given as an illustration of the value of adhering to method in our work. "Order," the poet Pope says, "is Heaven's first law," and time well ordered means generally work well and thoroughly done.

III. Punctuality.—This means keeping strictly as to time by any engagement we make either with ourselves or with others. If we resolve to do anything at a certain time, we should do it neither before nor after that time. It is better to be before than after. But it is best to be at the very minute. If we enter into an engagement with others for a certain time, we should be precise in keeping it. In a letter from a celebrated merchant, Buxton, to his son, he says, "Be punctual; I do not mean merely being in time for lectures, but mean that spirit out of which punctuality grows, that love of accuracy and precision which mark the efficient man. The habit of being punctual extends to everything—meeting friends, paying debts, going to church, reaching and leaving place of business, keeping promises, retiring at night and rising in the morning." We may lay down a system or method of work for ourselves, but it will be of little service unless we keep carefully to it, beginning and leaving off at the appointed moment. If the work of one hour is postponed to another, it will encroach on the time allotted to some other duty, if it do not remain altogether undone, and thus the whole business of the day is thrown into disorder. If a man loses half an hour by rising late in the morning, he is apt to spend the rest of the day seeking after it. Sir Walter Scott was not only methodical in his work, he was exceedingly punctual, always beginning his allotted task at the appointed moment. "When a regiment," he wrote, "is under march, the rear is often thrown into confusion because the front does not move steadily and without interruption. It is the same thing in business. If that which is first in hand be not instantly despatched, other things accumulate betimes, till affairs begin to press all at once, and no brain can stand the confusion." We should steadily cultivate the habit of punctuality. We can cultivate it until it becomes with us a second nature, and we do everything, as the saying is, "by clockwork." In rising in the morning and going to bed, in taking up different kinds of work, in keeping appointments with others, we should strive to be "to the minute." The unpunctual man is a nuisance to society. He wastes his own time, and he wastes the time of others; as Principal Tulloch well says, "Men who have real work of their own would rather do anything than do business with him." [2]

IV. Promptitude.—By this we mean acting at the present moment—all that is opposed to procrastination, putting off to another time, to a "convenient season" which probably never comes—all that is opposed also to what is called "loitering" or "dawdling." There is an old Latin proverb, "Bis dat qui cito dat,"—he gives twice who gives quickly. The same thing may be said of work, "He works twice who works quickly." In work, of course, the first requirement is that it should be well done; but this does not hinder quickness and despatch. There are those who, when they have anything to do, seem to go round it and round it, instead of attacking it at once and getting it out of the way; and when they do begin it they do so in a listless and half-hearted fashion. There are those who look at their work, according to the simile of Sidney Smith, like men who stand shivering on the bank instead of at once taking the plunge. "In order," he says, "to do anything that is worth doing in this world, we must not stand shivering on the bank thinking of the cold and the danger, but jump in and scramble through as well as we can. It will not do to be perpetually calculating and adjusting nice chances; it did all very well before the Flood, when a man could consult his friends upon an intended publication for a hundred and fifty years, and then live to see its success for six or seven centuries afterwards, but at present a man doubts, and waits, and hesitates, and consults his brother, and his uncle, and his first cousin, and his particular friends, till one day he finds that he is sixty-five years of age, that he has lost so much time in consulting first cousins and particular friends that he has no time to follow their advice." This is good sense, though humorously put. Promptitude is a quality that should be assiduously cultivated. Like punctuality, it becomes a most valuable habit. "Procrastination," it is said, "is the thief of time," and "hell is paved with good intentions." These proverbs are full of wisdom. When we hear people saying, "They are going to be this thing or that thing; they intend to look to this or to that; they will by and by do this or that," we may be sure there is a weakness in their character. Such people never come to much. The best way is not to speak about doing a thing, but to do it, and to do it at once.

To these thoughts on the use of time we may fitly add the great words of Scripture, "So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom," Ps. xc. 12. "Redeeming the time, because the days are evil," Ephes. v. 16. We transform time into eternity by using it aright.

[1] These illustrations are given by Mr. Davenport Adams.

[2] Beginning Life.

CHAPTER VII.

COURAGE.

We all know what is meant by courage, though it is not easy to define it. It is the determination to hold our own, to face danger without flinching, to go straight on our way against opposing forces, neither turning to the right hand nor the left.