won battles. The value of minutes has been often recognized, and any person watching a railway clerk handing out tickets and change during the last few minutes available must have been struck with how much could be done in these short periods of time.

At the appointed hour the train starts and by and by is carrying passengers at the rate of sixty miles an hour. In a second you are carried twenty-nine yards. In one twenty-ninth of a second you pass over one yard. Now, one yard is quite an appreciable distance, but one twenty-ninth of a second is a period which cannot be appreciated.

The father of the Webster brothers, before going away to be gone for a week, gave his boys a stint to cut a field of corn, telling them that after it was done, if they had any time left, they might do what they pleased. The boys looked the field over on Monday morning and concluded they could do all the work in three days, so they decided to play the first three days. Thursday morning they went to the field, but it looked so much larger than it did on Monday morning, that they decided they could not possibly do it in three days, and rather than not do it all, they would not touch it. When the angry father returned, he called Ezekiel to him and asked him why they had not harvested the corn. "What have you been doing?" said the stern father. Nothing,

father."

"And what have you been doing, Daniel?" "Helping Zeke, sir."

How many boys, and men, too, waste hours and days "helping Zeke!"

"Remember the world was created in six days," said Napoleon to one of his officers. "Ask for whatever you please except time." Railroads and steamboats have been wonderful educators in promptness. No matter who is late they leave right on the minute.

It is interesting to watch people at a great railroad station, running, hurrying, trying to make up time, for they well know when the time arrives the train will leave.

Factories, shops, stores, banks, everything opens and closes on the minute. The higher the state of civilization the prompter is everything done. In countries without railroads, as in Eastern countries, everything is behind time. Everybody is indolent and lazy.

The world knows that the prompt man's bills and notes will be paid on the day they are due, and will trust him. People will give him credit, for they know they can. depend upon him. But lack of promptness will shake confidence almost as quickly as downright dishonesty. The man who has a habit of dawdling or listlessness will show it in everything he does. He is late at meals, late at work, dawdles on the street, loses his train, misses his appointments, and dawdles at his store until the banks are

closed. Everybody he meets suffers more of less from his malady, for dawdling becomes practically a disease.

"You will never find time for anything," said Charles Buxton; "if you want time you must make it."

The best work we ever do is that which we do now, and can never repeat. "Too late," is the curse of the unsuccessful, who forget that one to-day is worth two to

morrows."

Time accepts no sacrifice; it admits of neither redemption nor atonement. It is the true avenger. Your enemy may become your friend, your injurer may do you justice, but Time is inexorable, and has

no mercy.

Then stay the present instant, dear Horatio:
Imprint the marks of wisdom on its wings.

'Tis of more worth than kingdoms! far more precious

Than all the crimson treasures of life's fountain. O! let it not elude thy grasp; but, like

The good old patriarch upon record,

Hold the fleet angel fast until he bless thee.

NATHANIEL COTTON.

CHAPTER XII.

THOROUGHNESS.

Doing well depends upon doing completely.— PERSIAN PROVERB.

He who does well will always have patrons enough.-PLAUTUS.

If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mouse-trap than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.EMERSON.

I hate a thing done by halves. If it be right, do it boldly; if it be wrong, leave it undone.GILPIN.

No two things differ more than Hurry and Dispatch. Hurry is the mark of a weak mind, Dispatch of a strong one. *** Like a turnstile, he (the weak man) is in everybody's way, but stops nobody; he talks a great deal, but says very little; looks into everything, but sees nothing; and has a hundred irons in the fire, but very few of them are hot, and with those few that are he only burns his fingers.-COLTON.

"Make me as good a hammer as you know how," said a carpenter to the blacksmith in a New York village before the first railroad was built; six of us have come to work on the new church, and I've left mine at home." "As good a one as I know how?" asked David Maydole, doubtfully,

'but perhaps you don't want to pay for as good a one as I know how to make." Yes, I do," said the carpenter, "I want a good hammer."

It was indeed a good hammer that he received, the best, probably, that had ever been made. By means of a longer hole than usual, David had wedged the handle in its place so that the head could not fly off, a wonderful improvement in the eyes of the carpenter, who boasted of his prize to his companions. They all came to the shop next day, and each ordered just such a hammer. When the contractor saw the tools, he ordered two for himself, asking that they be made a little better than those for his men. "I can't make any better ones," said Maydole; "when I make a thing, I make it as well as I can, no matter whom it is for."

career.

The storekeeper soon ordered two dozen, a supply unheard of in his previous business A New York dealer in tools came to the village to sell his wares, and bought all the storekeeper had, and left a standing order for all the blacksmith could make. David might have grown very wealthy by making goods of the standard already attained; but throughout his long and successful life he never ceased to study still further to perfect his hammers in the minutest detail. They were usually sold. without any warrant of excellence, the