se of that which used in moderation may
be blameless, fitting, and salutary.

Section I.

Time.

*A life-time is none too long for a life's work.* Hence the fitness, and
therefore the duty, of a careful economy of time. This economy can be
secured only by a systematic arrangement of one's hours of labor,
relaxation, and rest, and the assignment to successive portions of the
day, week, or year, of their appropriate uses. The amount of time wasted,
even by an industrious man who has no method or order in his industry,
bears a very large proportion to the time profitably employed. In the
needlessly frequent change of occupations, there is at each beginning and
ending a loss of the working power, which can neither start on a new
career at full speed, nor arrest itself without previous slackening. This
waste is made still greater by the suspense or vacillation of purpose of
those who not only have no settled plans of industry, but often know not
what to do, or are liable, so soon as they are occupied in one way, to
feel themselves irresistibly drawn in a different direction.

But in the distribution of time *a man should be the master, not the slave
of his system*. The regular work and the actual duty of the moment do not
always coincide. Due care for health, the opportunity for earned and
needed recreation, the claims of charity, courtesy, and hospitality, in
fine, the immediate urgency of any duty selfward, manward, or Godward,
should always take precedence of routine-work however wisely planned.
Obstinate adherence to system may lead to more and greater criminal
omissions of duty than would be incurred, even in the spasmodic industry
which takes its impulse from the passing moment. It must be remembered
that timeliness is the essential element of right and obligation in many
things that ought to be done, especially in all forms of charity, alike in
great services, and in those lesser amenities and kindnesses which
contribute so largely to the charm of society and the happiness of
domestic life. There are many good offices which, performed too late, were
better left undone,--courtesies which, postponed, are
incivilities,--attentions which, out of season, are needless and wearisome.

*Every day, every waking hour has its own duty*, either its special work,
or its due portion of one's normal life-work. Procrastination is,
therefore, as unwise as it is immoral, or rather, it is im