way _five years_! These five years are taken from that portion
of your time which should have been employed in the cultivation of your
mind, and in the practical duties of religion. For, the common excuse
for neglecting the improvement of the mind, and the cultivation of
personal piety, is _want of time_. Now, if you employ one half of this
time in reading, at the rate of twenty pages an hour, you will be able
to read more than _eighteen thousand pages_; or _sixty volumes_ of
three hundred pages each. If you employ the other half in devotional
exercises in your closet, in addition to the time you would spend in
this manner, upon the supposition that these five years are lost, what
an influence will it have upon the health of your soul? Or, if you spend
the whole of it in the active duties of Christian benevolence, how much
good can you accomplish? Think what you might do by employing five years
in the undivided service of your Master.

But, the grand secret of _redeeming_ time is, the systematic arrangement
of all of our affairs. The wise man says,--"To everything there is a
_season_, and a time for every purpose under heaven." Now, if we so
divide our time as to assign a particular season for every employment,
we shall be at no loss, when one thing is finished, what to do next, and
one duty will not crowd upon another. For want of this system, many
people suffer much needless perplexity. They find a multitude of duties
crowding upon them at the same time, and they know not where to begin
to discharge them. They spend perhaps half of their time in considering
what they shall do. They are always in a hurry and bustle, yet, when the
day is gone, they have not half finished its duties. All this would have
been avoided, had they parcelled out the day, and assigned particular
duties to particular seasons. They might have gone quietly to their
work; pursued their employments with calmness and serenity; and at the
close of the day laid themselves down to rest, with the satisfaction of
having discharged every duty. Form, then, a systematic plan to regulate
your daily employments. Give to each particular duty its appropriate
place; and when you have finished one, pass rapidly to another, without
losing any precious intervals between. Bear continually in mind that
every moment you waste will be deducted from the period of your earthly
existence; but do not try to crowd too much into the compass of a single
day. This will defeat yo