ur object. You will always be liable to numerous
and unavoidable interruptions. You have friends who claim a portion of
your time. It is better to interrupt your own affairs than to treat them
rudely. You have also many accidental duties, which you cannot bring
into the regular routine of your employments. Give, then, sufficient
latitude to your system to anticipate these, so that your affairs may
not be thrown into confusion by their unexpected occurrence.

The duty of being systematic in all our arrangements is enforced by
several considerations. 1. _By the example of our Creator._ By a careful
perusal of the first chapter of Genesis, you will see that God assigned
a particular portion of the creation to each day of the week, and that
he rested on the seventh day. Now the Lord has some design in everything
he does. He never did anything in vain. But he could as easily have made
all things at once, by a single word of his power, as to have been
occupied six days in the creation. As for resting the seventh day, the
Almighty could not be weary, and therefore needed no rest. What, then,
could have been his design in this, but to set before us an example for
the regulation of our conduct?

2. _This duty is also enforced by the analogy of the visible creation._
The most complete and perfect system, order, and harmony, may be read in
every page of the book of nature. From the minutest insect, up through
all the animal creation, to the structure of our own bodies, there is a
systematic arrangement of every particle of matter. So, from the little
pebble that is washed upon the sea-shore, up to the loftiest worlds, and
the whole planetary system, the same truth is manifest.

3. _This duty is enforced by our obligation to employ all our time for
the glory of God._ If we neglect the systematic arrangement of all our
affairs, we lose much precious time, which might have been employed in
the service of the Lord.

I shall close this letter with a few remarks upon the nature of
obligation. The very idea of obligation supposes the possibility of the
thing being done that is required. There can be no such thing as our
being under obligation to do what is in its own nature impossible. The
idea itself is absurd. This principle is recognized by our Lord in the
parable of the talents. The man only required of his servants _according
to their ability_. Nothing, then, is duty except what can be done at the
present moment. There are other