ho had said upon entering the plague-stricken city
that he meant to kill ten thousand people, was accused on the way out
of having slain forty thousand.

"I kept my word," he answered. "I killed but ten thousand. Fear killed
the rest!"

If work slays thousands of American women, American worry slays her
tens of thousands. Work may bend the back and stiffen the joints. It
ploughs no furrows in brow and cheek; it does not hollow the eyes and
drag all the facial muscles downward. These are misdeeds of
worry--your familiar demon, and the curse of our sex everywhere. A
good man--who, by the way, had a pale, harassed-looking wife--once
told me that on each birthday and New Year's he retired to his study
and spent some time behind the locked door in making good resolutions
for the coming year.

"I may not keep them all," he said, ingenuously, "but the exercise of
forming them is edifying."

With the thought of his wan and worried wife in mind, I shocked him by
declining for my part to undertake such a big contract as resolutions
for a year, a month or a week. If I live to a good old age, I shall
owe the blessing in a great measure to the discovery, years ago, that
I am hired not by the job, but by the day. If you, dear friend, will
receive this truth into a good and honest heart, and believing, abide
in and live by it, you will find it the very elixir of life to your
spirit.

Come down from the pillar of observation. You might enact Simeon
Stylites there for twenty years to come and be none the wiser or
happier for the outlook. Refuse obstinately to take the big contract.
Let each morning and evening be a new and complete day. In childlike
simplicity live as if you were to have no to-morrow so far as worrying
as to its possible outcome goes. Make the best of to-day's _in_come.
Not one minute of to-morrow belongs to you. It is all God's. Thank him
that His hands hold it, and not your feeble, uncertain fingers.

Longfellow wrote nothing more elevating and helpful than his sonnet to
"To-morrow, the Mysterious Guest," who whispers to the boding human
soul:

"'Remember Barmecide,
And tremble to be happy with the rest.'
And I make answer, 'I am satisfied.
I know not, ask not, what is best;
God hath already said what shall betide.'"

The new version of the New Testament, among other richly suggestive
readings, tells us that Martha was "_distracted_ with much serving,"
and that we are not to be "anxious for t