Volume 1 — THE EMPLOYMENT OF TIME.

Lecture before the Boston Lyceum, delivered in the Federal Street Theatre, February 18, 1846.

"I have lost a day," was the exclamation of the virtuous Roman Emperor,—"for on this day I have done no good thing." The Arch of Titus still stands midway between the Forum and the Colosseum, and the curious traveller discerns the golden candlesticks of conquered Judæa sculptured on its marble sides; but this monument of triumph, and the memory it perpetuates of the veteran legions of Rome and the twenty cohorts of allies before whose swords the sacred city yielded its life in terrible fire and blood, give not to the conqueror such true glory as springs from these words,—destined to endure long after the arch has crumbled to dust, and when the triumph it seeks to perpetuate has passed from the minds of men. That day was not lost. On no day wast thou so great or beneficent as when thou gavest this eternal lesson to man. Across the ages it still reaches innumerable hearts, even as it penetrated the friendly bosoms that throbbed beneath its first utterance. The child learns it, and receives a new impulse to labor and goodness. There are few, whether old or young, who do not recognize it as more than a victory.

If I undertake to dwell on the suggestions of this theme, it is because it seems to me especially appropriate to the young, at whose request I have the honor of appearing before you. My subject is the Value of Time, and the way in which it may be best employed. I shall attempt nothing elaborate, but simply gather together illustrations and examples, which, though trite and familiar, will at least be practical.

The value of time is one of our earliest lessons, taught at the mother's knee, even with the alphabet,—"S is a sluggard,"—confirmed by the maxims of Poor Richard, printed at the end of almanacs, and stamped on handkerchiefs,—further enforced by the examples of the copy-book, as the young fingers first learn to join words together by the magical art of writing. Fable comes in aid of precept, and the venerable figure of Time is depicted to the receptive, almost believing, imagination of childhood, as winged, and also bald on the top and back of the head, with a single tuft of hair on the forehead, signifying that whoso would detain it must seize it by the forelock. With such lessons and pictures the child is trained. Moralist, preacher, and poet also enforce these teachings; and the improvement of time, the importance of industry, and the excellence of labor become commonplaces of exhortation.

The value of time has passed into a proverb,—"Time is money." It is so because its employment brings money. But it is more. It is knowledge. Still more, it is virtue. Nor is it creditable to the character of the world that the proverb has taken this material and mercenary complexion, as if money were the highest good and the strongest recommendation. Time is more than money. It brings what money cannot purchase. It has in its lap all the learning of the Past, the spoils of Antiquity, the priceless treasures of knowledge. Who would barter these for gold or silver? But knowledge is a means only, and not an end. It is valuable because it promotes the welfare, the development, and the progress of man. And the highest value of time is not even in knowledge, but in the opportunity of doing good.

Time is opportunity. Little or much, it may be the occasion of usefulness. It is the point desired by the philosopher where to plant the lever that shall move the world. It is the napkin in which are wrapped, not only the talent of silver, but the treasures of knowledge and the fruits of virtue. Saving time, we save all these. Employing time to the best advantage, we exercise a true thrift. Here is a wise parsimony; here is a sacred avarice. To each of us the passing day is of the same dimensions, nor can any one by taking thought add a moment to its hours. But though unable to extend their duration, he may swell them with works.

It is customary to say, "Take care of the small sums, and the large will take care of themselves." With equal wisdom and more necessity may it be said, "Watch the minutes, and the hours and days will be safe." The moments are precious; they are gold filings, to be carefully preserved and melted into the rich ingot.

Time is the measure of life on earth. Its enjoyment is life itself. Its divisions, its days, its hours, its minutes, are fractions of this heavenly gift. Every moment that flies over our heads takes from the future and gives to the irrevocable past, shortening by so much the measure of our days, abridging by so much the means of usefulness committed to our hands. Before the voice which now addresses you shall die away in the air, another hour will have passed, and we shall all have advanced by another stage towards the final goal on earth. Waste or sacrifice of time is, then, waste or sacrifice of life itself: it is partial suicide.

The moments lost in listlessness or squandered in unprofitable dissipation, gathered into aggregates, are hours, days, weeks, months, years. The daily sacrifice of a single hour during a year comes at its end to thirty-six working days, allowing ten hours to the day,—an amount of time, if devoted exclusively to one object, ample for the acquisition of important knowledge, and for the accomplishment of inconceivable good. Imagine, if you please, a solid month dedicated, without interruption, to a single purpose,—to the study of a new language, an untried science, an unexplored field of history, a fresh department of philosophy, or to some new sphere of action, some labor of humanity, some godlike charity,—and what visions must not rise of untold accumulations of knowledge, of unnumbered deeds of goodness! Who of us does not each day, in manifold ways, sacrifice these precious moments, these golden hours?

There is a legend of Mohammed which teaches how much may be crowded into a moment. It is said that he was suddenly taken up by an angel, and borne beyond the naming bounds of space, where he beheld the wonders of Heaven and Hell, the bliss of the faithful and the torments of the damned in measureless variety, and was then returned to the spot of earth from which he had been lifted,—all in so short a time that the water had not entirely run out of the pitcher which he let fall from his hands when he was borne upwards. But actual life furnishes illustrations of greater point. It is related of a celebrated French jurist, one of the ornaments of the magistracy, that he composed a learned and important work in the quarter hours that draggled between dinner ordered and dinner served. Napoleon directed one of his generals to move on a battery of the enemy, although reinforcements were in sight, saying, "It will take them fifteen minutes to reach the point; I have always observed that these fifteen minutes decide great battles." In the currents of common life they are often as decisive as in the heady fight.

It would be easy, from literary and political history, from the lives of all who have excelled in any way, to accumulate illustrations of the power of industry. Among those who have achieved what the world calls greatness, the list might be extended from Julius Cæsar to Napoleon, whose feats of labor are among the marvels of history. Nor should we forget Alfred, the father of English civilization, whose better fame testifies also to the wise employment of time. Our own country, this very town, furnishes a renowned example in Benjamin Franklin. Here I pronounce a name which has its own familiar echoes. His early studies, when a printer's boy,—his singular experience of life in its extremes,—sounding in childhood all the humilities, as in maturer years he reached all that was exalted in place,—the truant boy become a teacher to the nations, and pouring light upon the highest schools of science and philosophy, touching the throne with hands once blackened by types and ink,—all this must be present to you. His first and constant talisman was industry. The autobiography in which he has recorded his progress in knowledge is a remarkable composition, where the style flows like a brook of transparent water, without a ripple on its smooth surface. Perhaps no single book has had greater influence in quickening labor and the rigid economy of time, overcoming all obstacles, among those whose early life has been chilled by penury or darkened by neglect. But we must qualify our praise. It cannot fail to be regretted that the lessons taught by Franklin are so little spiritual in their character,—that they are so material, so mundane, so full of pounds, shillings, and pence. "The Almighty Dollar," now ruling here with sovereign sway and masterdom, was placed on the throne by Poor Richard. When shall it be dethroned? When shall the thoughts, the aspirations, the politics of the land be lifted from the mere greed of gain, with an appetite that grows by what it feeds on, into the serene region of inflexible justice and universal benevolence? Could we imagine the thrift, the worldly wisdom, the practical sense, the inventive genius of Franklin, softened, exalted, illumined, inspired by the imagination, the grace, the sensibility, the heavenly spirit of Channing, we should behold a character under whose influence our country would advance at once in all spiritual as well as material prosperity,—where money should not be the "main chance," but truth, justice, righteousness, drawing in their train all the goods of earth, and reflecting all the blessings of heaven. Then would time be the best ally of man, and no day would pass without some good thing done.

Among the contemporaries of Franklin in England, unlike in the patrician circumstances of his birth, education, and life, most unlike in his topics of thought and study, but resembling him in the diligence and constancy of labor marking his career, was Edward Gibbon, author of the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. He also has left behind an autobiography,—in style and tone how unlike the simple narrative of Franklin!—where in living colors are depicted the labors and delights of a scholar's life. This book has always seemed to me, more than any other in the English language, calculated to enkindle the love of learning, and to train the student for its pursuit. Here he will find an example and guide in the various fields of scholarship, who will challenge his admiration in proportion as he shares the same generous aspiration. The autobiographies of Gibbon and Franklin are complements of each other. They teach the same lesson of labor and study in different spheres of life and to different classes of minds. Both have rare excellence as compositions, and constitute important contributions to that literature which illustrates the employment of time.

There is another character, of our own age, whose example is, perhaps, more direct and practical, especially as described by himself: I mean William Cobbett. To appreciate this example, you must know something of his long life, from early and inauspicious youth to venerable years, filled always with labors various, incessant, and Herculean, under which his elastic nature seemed to rise with renewed strength. He died in 1835, supposed to be seventy-three years of age, although the exact date of his birth was never known, and such was the position he had acquired that he was characterized at that time, even by hostile pens, as one of the most remarkable men whom England, fertile in intellectual excellence, ever produced. The lapse of little more than ten years has begun to obscure his memory. It will be for posterity to determine whether he has connected his name with those great causes of human improvement which send their influence to future ages, and are destined to be the only consideration on which fame hereafter will be awarded or preserved. But the memory of his labors, and the voice of encouragement to the poor and lowly which sounds throughout his writings, must always be refreshing to those whose hopes of future usefulness are clouded by discouragement and poverty. There can be none so humble as not to derive succor from his example. He was conscious even to vanity of his own large powers, and at the close of his long career surveyed his succession of labors—the hundred volumes from his sleepless pen, and the wide influence they had exercised—with the self-gratulation of the miser in counting his stores of gold and silver.

The son of a poor farmer, at the age of twenty he ran away from the paternal acres, and became for a short time copying-clerk to a lawyer, but, tiring soon of these duties, he enlisted in the army and found himself private in a regiment at Chatham, which was ordered to America. His merit soon raised him to the rank of corporal, and then of sergeant-major. At this time he saw his future wife and the mother of his children. The circumstances of this meeting, as described by himself in his own peculiar style, belong to this picture, while they illustrate the subject. "When I first saw my wife," he writes, "she was thirteen years old, and I was within a month of twenty-one. She was the daughter of a sergeant-major of artillery, and I was the sergeant-major of a regiment of foot, both stationed in forts near the city of St. John, in the province of New Brunswick. I sat in the same room with her for about an hour, in company with others, and I made up my mind that she was the very girl for me. That I thought her beautiful is certain, for that I had always said should be an indispensable qualification; but I saw in her what I deemed marks of that sobriety of conduct of which I have said so much, and which has been by far the greatest blessing of my life. It was now dead of winter, and of course the snow several feet deep on the ground, and the weather piercing cold. It was my habit, when I had done my morning's writing, to go out at break of day to take a walk on a hill at the foot of which our barracks lay. In about three mornings after I had first seen her, I had, by an invitation to breakfast with me, got up two young men to join me in my walk, and our road lay by the house of her father and mother. It was hardly light, but she was out on the snow, scrubbing out a washing-tub. 'That's the girl for me!' said I, when we had got out of her hearing."[126] To her he plighted faith. After eight years of service in the army, and his return to England, he obtained his discharge and married her.

In 1792 Cobbett came to the United States, living in Philadelphia, where he was bookseller, publisher, author, and libeller by profession. As "Peter Porcupine" he is well known. He shot his sharp and malicious quills at the most estimable characters,—Franklin, Jefferson, Gallatin, Priestley, and even the sacred name of Washington. A heavy judgment for libel hanging suspended over him, he fled from America, and from the justice he had aroused, to commence in England a fresh career of unquestioned talents, unaccountable inconsistency, and inexhaustible malignity.

On his arrival in England Cobbett attached himself warmly to the interests of Mr. Pitt, in whose behalf he wielded for a while his untiring pen. At the same time he commenced business as bookseller, in which he soon failed. In politics he showed himself more Tory than the most Tory. Mr. Windham, in the House of Commons, made the remarkable declaration, that "he merited a statue of gold."[127] His Letters on the Treaty of Amiens produced a sensation throughout Europe.[128] The celebrated Swiss historian, Von Müller, pronounced them more eloquent than anything since Demosthenes. How transitory is fame! These Letters, once so much admired, which, with profane force, helped to burst open the Temple of Janus, happily closed by peace, are now forgotten. I do not know that they are to be found in any library in this part of the country.

It was at this period that he commenced his "Weekly Political Register," which for more than thirty years was the vehicle of his opinions and feelings. But the pungent Toryism with which he began his career was changed into a more pungent Liberalism; from the oil of Conservatism he passed to the vinegar of Dissent. He saw all things in a new light, and with unsparing criticism pursued the men he had recently extolled. His Ishmael pen was turned against every man. He wrote with the hardihood of a pirate and the ardor of a patriot. At length he was convicted of libel, and sentenced to pay a fine of a thousand pounds and to be imprisoned for two years. This severe incarceration he never forgave or forgot. With thoughts of vengeance he emerged from his prison to unaccustomed popularity. His "Register," into which, as into a seething caldron, he weekly poured the venom of his pen, reached the unprecedented circulation of one hundred thousand, an audience greater than was ever before addressed by saint or sinner. The soul swells in the contemplation of the good that might have been wrought by a spirit elevated to the high purpose, having access to so many human hearts. His pen waxing in inveteracy, and himself becoming daily more obnoxious to the Government, in 1817, by timely flight, he withdrew from the threatening storm, and sought shelter in the United States, where he lingered, principally on Long Island, till 1819, when he wandered back to England, there to renew his strifes and ruffle again the waters of political controversy. As late as 1831, he was, for the eighth time in his life, brought into court on a charge of libel. The veteran libeller, then seventy years of age, defended himself in a speech which occupied six hours. The jury did not agree,—six being for conviction and six for acquittal.

At the general election for the Reform Parliament in 1832, Cobbett was chosen member for the borough of Oldham, which seat he held until June 18, 1835, when his long, active, and disturbed career was closed by death, leaving her whom he had loved at the wash-tub, amid the snows of New Brunswick, his honored widow.

His character was unique. He was the most emphatic of writers, perhaps the most voluminous. He was foremost in the crew of haters; he was the paragon of turncoats. Sentiments uttered at one period were denied at another. At one time he wrote of Paine as follows: "He has done all the mischief he can in the world, and whether his carcass is at last to be suffered to rot on the earth or to be dried in the air is of very little consequence. Whenever or wherever he breathes his last, he will excite neither sorrow nor compassion; no friendly hand will close his eyes."[129] Later in life, on his second visit to America, he exhumed the bones of the man he had thus reviled, and bore them in idolatrous custody to the land of his birth.

Besides his multitudinous political writings, which in number remind us of the cloud of "locusts warping on the eastern wind," he produced several works of great and deserved popularity,—a Grammar of the French Language, written while he rocked the cradle of his first child,—a Grammar of the English Language,—a little volume, "Advice to Young Men,"—and a series of sketches entitled "Rural Rides," in which he gave unmixed pleasure to friend and foe.

I have dwelt thus long upon the life and character of Cobbett, as a proper introduction to the picture of his marvellous industry, which I am able to present in his own language. The labor which he accomplished testifies; but in his writings he often refers to it with peculiar pride. He tells us how he learned grammar. Writing a fair hand, he was employed as copyist by the commandant of the garrison where he first enlisted. In his autobiography he says: "Being totally ignorant of the rules of grammar, I necessarily made many mistakes. The Colonel saw my deficiency, and strongly recommended study. I procured me a Lowth's Grammar, and applied myself to the study of it with unceasing assiduity. The pains I took cannot be described. I wrote the whole Grammar out two or three times; I got it by heart; I repeated it every morning and every evening; and when on guard, I imposed on myself the task of saying it all over once, every time I was posted sentinel."[130] Would that all posted as sentinels were as well employed as saying over to themselves the English grammar! If every common soldier could do this, there would be little fear of war. The evil spirits were supposed to be driven away by an Ave Maria or a word of prayer. The grammar would be as potent. "Terrible as an army with grammars" would be more than "Terrible as an army with banners."

In his "Advice to Young Men" Cobbett says: "For my part, I can truly say that I owe more of my great labors to my strict adherence to the precepts that I have here given you than to all the natural abilities with which I have been endowed; for these, whatever may have been their amount, would have been of comparatively little use, even aided by great sobriety and abstinence, if I had not in early life contracted the blessed habit of husbanding well my time. To this, more than to any other thing, I owed my very extraordinary promotion in the army. I was always ready. If I had to mount guard at ten, I was ready at nine; never did any man or any thing wait one moment for me.... My custom was this: to get up in summer at daylight, and in winter at four o'clock; shave, dress, even to the putting of my sword-belt over my shoulder, and having my sword lying on the table before me, ready to hang by my side. Then I ate a bit of cheese or pork and bread. Then I prepared my report, which was filled up as fast as the companies brought me in the materials. After this I had an hour or two to read before the time came for any duty out of doors."[131]

At a later period of life, when his condition was entirely changed, and his name as a writer was in all men's mouths, he thus describes his habits. "I hardly ever eat more than twice a day,—when at home, never,—and I never, if I can well avoid it, eat any meat later than one or two o'clock in the day. I drink a little tea or milk-and-water at the usual tea-time (about seven o'clock). I go to bed at eight, if I can. I write or read from about four to about eight, and then, hungry as a hunter, I go to breakfast."[132]

In another place he recounts with especial satisfaction a conversation at which he was present, one of the parties to which was Sir John Sinclair, the famous agriculturist and correspondent of Washington. "I once heard Sir John Sinclair," he says, "ask Mr. Cochrane Johnstone whether he meant to have a son of his, then a little boy, taught Latin. 'No,' said Mr. Johnstone, 'but I mean to do something a great deal better for him.' 'What is that?' said Sir John. 'Why,' said the other, 'teach him to shave with cold water and without a glass.'"[133]

With this pertinacious devotion to labor, and this unparalleled sense of the value of time, Cobbett surrendered himself to the blandishments of domestic life. The hundred-armed giant of the press, he always had an arm for his child. "For my own part," he says, "how many days, how many months, all put together, have I spent with babies in my arms! My time, when at home, and when babies were going on, was chiefly divided between the pen and the baby. I have fed them and put them to sleep hundreds of times, though there were servants to whom the task might have been transferred. Yet I have not been effeminate; I have not been idle; I have not been a waster of time." "Many a score of papers have I written amidst the noise of children, and in my whole life never bade them be still. When they grew up to be big enough to gallop about the house, I have, in wet weather, when they could not go out, written the whole day amidst noise that would have made some authors half mad. It never annoyed me at all."[134]

These passages are like windows in his life, through which we discern his character, where the domestic affections seem to vie with the sense of time.

No person can become familiar with the career of Cobbett without recognizing regular habits of industry as the potent means of producing important results. Did the hour permit, it would be pleasant and instructive to review the career of another distinguished character, whose writings have added much to the happiness of his age, and whose rare feats of labor illustrate the same truth: I mean the author of "Waverley." There are points of comparison or contrast between Cobbett and Scott which might be presented at length. They were strictly contemporaries, spanning with their lives almost the same long tract of time. They were the most voluminous authors of their age, perhaps the most voluminous couple of any age. Since the days of Ariosto no writers had been read by so many persons as was the fortune of each. The marvellous fecundity of Scott was more than matched by the prolific energy of Cobbett. The fame of the Scotsman was equalled by the notoriety of the Englishman. If one awakened our delight, we could not withhold from the other our astonishment. With Scott life was a gala and a festival, with beauty, wit, and bravery. With Cobbett it was a stern reality, perpetually crying out, like the witch in Macbeth, "I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do." And yet Scott was hardly less careful of time than his indefatigable contemporary. His life is a lesson of industry, and the student may derive instruction from his example. Both sought in early rising the propitious hours of labor; but the morning brought its rich incense to the one, and its vigor to the other. They departed this life within a short period of each other, casting and leaving behind their voluminous folds of authorship. The future historian will note and study these; but the world, which has already dismissed Cobbett from its presence, will hardly cherish with enduring affection the writings of Scott. He lived in the Past, and, with ill-directed genius, sought to gild the force, the injustice, the inhumanity of the early ages. Cobbett lived intensely in the Present, and drew his inspiration from its short-lived controversies. For neither had Hope scattered from her "pictured urn" the delights of an unborn period, when the dignity of Humanity shall stand confessed. A greater fame than is awarded to either will be his who hereafter, with the imagination of the one and the energy of the other, without the spirit of Hate that animated Cobbett, without the spirit of Caste that prevailed in Scott, regarding life neither as a festival nor as a battle, forgetting Cavalier and Roundhead alike, and remembering only Universal Man, shall dedicate the labors of a long life, not to the Past, not to the Present only, but also to the Future, striving to bring its blessings nearer to all.

Such are some of the examples by which we learn the constant lesson of the value of time. For them genius did much, but industry went hand in hand with this celestial guide.

Here the student may ask by what rule time is to be arranged and apportioned so as to accomplish the greatest results. If we interrogate the lives of our masters in this regard, we shall find no uniform rule as to the employment of the day, or even the hours of repose. The great lawyer, Lord Coke, whose rare learning and professional fame cannot render us insensible to his brutality of character, has preserved for the benefit of the young student some Latin verses setting forth the proper division of the day, allowing six hours for sleep, six for the law, four for prayers, two for meals, while all the rest, being six hours more, is to be lavished on the sacred muses.[135] These directions are imperfectly reproduced in two English rhymes:—

A more estimable character than Lord Coke, in whose life clustered literary as well as professional honors, Sir William Jones, himself a model of the industry he inculcated, has said in a well-known distich:—

The one hour here unappropriated is absorbed in the "all to Heaven." Sir Matthew Hale, another eminent name in jurisprudence, studied sixteen hours a day for the first two years after he commenced the law, but almost brought himself to the grave thereby, though of a strong constitution, and he afterwards came down to eight hours; but he would not advise anybody to so much,—believing that six hours a day, with constancy and attention, were sufficient, and adding, that "a man must use his body as he would his horse and his stomach, not tire him at once, but rise with an appetite."[136] Here is at once example and warning.

Sleep is the most exacting of masters; it must be obeyed. Couriers slumber on their horses; soldiers drop asleep on the field of battle, even amidst the din of war. In that famous retreat of Sir John Moore, English soldiers are said to have slept while still moving. Ambition and the pride of victory yield to sleep. Alexander slept on the field of Arbela, and Napoleon on the field of Austerlitz. Bereavement and approaching death are forgotten in sleep. The convict sleeps in the few hours before his execution. According to Homer, sleep overcomes even the gods, excepting Jupiter alone. Its beneficence is equal to its power; nor has this ever been pictured more wonderfully than in those agonized words of Macbeth, where he says,—

The rule of sleep is not the same for all. There are some with whom its requirements are gentle: a few hours will suffice. But such cases are exceptional. The Jesuits have done much for education, but on this question they seem to have failed. In settling the system for their college at Clermont, they followed their physicians in a rigid rule. The latter reported that five hours were sufficient, six abundant, and seven as much as a youthful constitution could bear without injury. On the other hand, Cobbett, whose experience of life was as thorough as his diligence, says expressly: "Young people require more sleep than those that are grown up: there must be the number of hours, and that number cannot well be on an average less than eight; and if it be more in winter-time, it is all the better."[137] George the Third thought otherwise, at least for men. A tradesman, whom he had asked to call on him at eight o'clock in the morning, arriving behind the hour, the King said, "Oh! the great Mr. B.! What sleep do you take, Mr. B.?" "Why, please your Majesty, I am a man of regular habits; I usually take eight hours." "Eight hours!" said the King; "that's too much, too much. Six hours' sleep is enough for a man, seven for a woman, and eight for a fool,—Mr. B., eight for a fool." The opinions of physiologists would probably incline with Mr. B., the tradesman, contrary to this royal authority.

It is impossible to lay down any universal rule with regard to the proper portion of time for sleep. Each constitution of body has its own habits; nor can any rule be drawn from the lives of the most industrious, except of economy of time, according to the capacity of each person. The great German scholar Heyne, who has shed such lustre on classical learning, in the order of his early studies allowed himself, for six months, only two nights' sleep in a week. The eccentric Robert Hill, of England, who passed his life as a tailor, but by persevering labor made rare attainments in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, was accustomed to sit up very late into the night, or else to rise by two or three o'clock in the morning, that he might find time for reading without prejudice to his trade, and although of a weakly constitution, he accustomed himself to do very well with only two or three hours of sleep in the twenty-four, and he lived to be seventy-eight. But this is a curiosity rather than an example. Such also is the story of the Roman Emperor Caligula, who slept only three hours. In the list of men sleeping only four hours is Frederick of Prussia, John Hunter, the surgeon, Napoleon, and Alexander von Humboldt. That gallant cavalier and accomplished historian, renowned for genius and misfortune, Sir Walter Raleigh, was accustomed, even under the pressure of his arduous career, to devote four hours daily to reading and study, while he allowed only five for sleep. Probably all of us, in our own personal experience, have known men of study and labor who, in the ardor of their pursuit, have foregone what is thought the ordinary sleep, being late to bed and early to rise, reducing the night to a narrow isthmus of time. Others there are with a vivacity of industry which acts with intensity and rapidity, requiring long periods of repose. I cannot forget that Judge Story, the person who has accomplished more than any one within the circle of my individual observation, whose life—now, alas! closed by death—was thickly studded with various labors as judge, professor, and author, is a high example of what may be wrought by wakeful diligence, without denying the body any refreshment of repose. His habit, during the years of his greatest intellectual activity, was to retire always at ten o'clock and to rise at seven,—allowing nine hours for sleep. The tradesman of George the Third might have sought shelter with him from the royal raillery.

Pursuing these inquiries as to the arrangement of the day, we find the precept, if not the example, uniform with regard to early rising as propitious to health and intellectual exertion. The old saw, "Early to bed and early to rise," imprints the lesson upon the mind of childhood. The magnificent period of Milton sounds in our ears: "My morning haunts are where they should be, at home,—not sleeping, or concocting the surfeits of an irregular feast, but up and stirring,—in winter often ere the sound of any bell awake men to labor or to devotion,—in summer as oft with the bird that first rouses, or not much tardier, to read good authors or cause them to be read, till the attention be weary or memory have its full fraught,—then with useful and generous labors preserving the body's health and hardiness, to render lightsome, clear, and not lumpish obedience to the mind, to the cause of religion, and our country's liberty."[138] Sir Walter Scott is less stately in his tribute to the morning, but he agrees with Milton: "The half-hour between waking and rising has all my life proved propitious to any task which was exercising my invention. When I got over any knotty difficulty in a story, or have had in former times to fill up a passage in a poem, it was always when I first opened my eyes that the desired ideas thronged upon me. This is so much the case, that I am in the habit of relying upon it, and saying to myself, when I am at a loss, 'Never mind, we shall have it at seven o'clock to-morrow morning.' If I have forgot a circumstance, or a name, or a copy of verses, it is the same thing."[139] In this equal dedication to the morning Milton and Scott are alike, but how unlike in all else! Milton's testimony is like an anthem; Scott's like an affidavit.

Notwithstanding these great examples and the prevailing precept, it may be doubted if the student can be weaned from those habits which lead him to continue his vigils far into the watches of the night. From time immemorial he has been said to "consume the midnight oil," and productions marked by peculiar care are proverbially reputed to "smell of the lamp," never to breathe the odor of the morning. An ingenious inquirer might be inclined to trace in different writers, particularly in poets, the distinctive influence of the hours they devoted to labor, and, perhaps, to find in Milton and Scott the freshness and vivid colors of the rosy-fingered dawn, and in Schiller and Byron the sombre shade and sickly glare of the lamp. Whatever the result of such speculations, which might be moralized by example, the midnight lamp will ever be regarded as the symbol of labor. In the wonders it has wrought it yields only to the far-famed lamp of Aladdin. They who confess themselves among "the slaves of the lamp" say that there is an excitement in study, increasing as the work proceeds, which flames forth with new brightness at the close of the day and in the stillness of those hours when the world is wrapped in sleep and the student is the sole watcher. The heavy clock seems to toll the midnight hour in the church-belfry for him alone, and, as he catches its distant vibrations, he thinks that he hears the iron hoof of Time come sounding by. All interruptions are ended, and he is in closer companionship with his books and studies. He holds converse face to face with the spirits of the mighty dead, while the learned page and glowing verse become vocal with inspiring thought. The poet speaks to him with richer melodies, and the soul responds in new and more generous resolves.

It is not for me on this occasion to interpose any judgment on a question which comes within the precincts of physiology. My present purpose is accomplished, if I teach the husbandry of time. To this end I have adduced authority and example. But there are other considerations which enforce the lesson with persuasive power.

In the employment of time will be found the sure means of happiness. The laborer living by the sweat of his brow, and the youth toiling in perplexities of business or study, sighs for repose, and repines at the law which ordains the seeming hardship of his lot. He seeks happiness as the end and aim of life, but he does not open his mind to the important truth that occupation is indispensable to happiness. He shuns work, but he does not know the precious jewel hidden beneath its rude attire. Others there are who wander over half the globe in pursuit of what is found under the humblest roof of virtuous industry, in the shadow of every tree planted by one's own hand. The poet has said,—

"The best and sweetest far are toil-created gains."

But this does not disclose the whole truth. There is in useful labor its own exceeding great reward, without regard to gain.

The happiness found in occupation is the frequent theme of the moralist, but nobody has illustrated it with more power than Luther in his Table-Talk, where he presents an image of the human mind which has always seemed to me one of the most striking in the whole range of literature. Let me give it in the strong and fibrous diction of the ancient translation from the original Latin.

"The heart of an humane creature is like a mill-stone in a mill: when corn is shaked thereupon, it runneth about, rubbeth and grindeth it to meal; but if no corn bee present (the stone nevertheless running still about), then it rubbeth and grindeth it self thinner, and becometh less and smaller: even so the heart of an humane creature will bee occupied; if it hath not the works of its vocation in hand to bee busied therein, then cometh the Divel and shooteth thereinto tribulations, heavie cogitations and vexations, as then the heart consumeth it self with melancholie, insomuch that it must starv and famish."[140] That it may not starve and famish, it must be supplied with something to do; and its happiness will be in proportion to the completeness with which all its faculties are brought into activity.

It is according to God's Providence that there should be pleasure in the exercise of all the powers with which we are blessed. There is pleasure in seeing the sights and catching the sounds of Nature. There is pleasure in the exercise of the limbs, even in extending an arm or moving a muscle. Higher degrees of pleasure are allotted to the exercise of the higher faculties. There is pleasure in the acquisition of knowledge,—pleasure in the performance of duty,—pleasure in all the labors by which we promote our own progress,—pleasure higher still in those by which we promote the progress of others.

If this be so,—and surely it will not be doubted,—then is it our duty to regulate our habits so as to cultivate all the faculties, to the end that Time shall yield its choicest fruits. When I speak of all the faculties, I mean all those which enter into and form the character created in the image of God, not merely those which minister to the selfish ends of life. There are faculties for business; there are others which open to us the avenues of knowledge,—others which connect us by chains soft as silk, but strong as iron, to the social and domestic circle,—others still which reveal to us, in vistas of infinite variety and inconceivable extension, our duties to God and man. Nor can any one reasonably persuade himself that he has done his whole duty, and employed his time to the best purpose, who has neglected any of these, although he may have sacrificed much to the others. Success in business will not compensate for neglect of general culture; nor will attendance on "the stated preaching of the gospel" atone for a want of interest in the great charities of life, in the education of the people, in the sufferings of the poor, in the sorrows of the slave.

There is a tendency to absorption by one pursuit or one idea, against which we must especially guard. The mere man of business is "a man of one idea,"[141] and his solitary idea has its root in no generous or humane desires, but in selfishness. He lives for himself alone. He may send his freights to the most distant quarters of the earth, and receive therefrom returning argosies, but his real horizon is restricted to the narrow circle of his own personal interests; nor does his worldly nature, elated by the profits of cent per cent, see with eye of sympathy, in cotton sold or sugar bought, the drops of blood falling from the unhappy slaves out of whose labor they were wrung. In the mere man of business the individual is lost in the profession or calling, thinking only of that, and caring little for other things of life. He is known by the character that business impresses upon him. He is untiring in its pursuit, but with no true progress, for each day renews its predecessor. Benevolence calls, but he is deaf, or satisfies his conscience by a dole of money. Literature exhibits her charms, but he is insensible. And innocent recreation makes her pleasant appeal, but he will not listen. He is absorbed, engrossed, filled in every vein by the "one idea" of business with new methods of adding to his increasing gains, as the mouth of the money-seeking Crassus was filled by the Parthians with molten gold.

We learn to deride the pedant who sacrifices everything to the accumulation of empty learning, which he displays at all times, as a peddler his wares. The image of Dominie Sampson, in Scott's novel of "Guy Mannering," is a happy scarecrow to frighten us from his "one idea." But the merchant whose only talk is of markets, the farmer whose only talk is of bullocks, and the lawyer whose only talk is of his cases, are all Dominie Sampsons in their way. They have all missed that completeness and harmony of development essential to the balance of the faculties and to the best usefulness. They have become richer in this world's goods; but they have sacrificed what money cannot supply,—a general intelligence, an independence of calling or position, and a catholic, liberal spirit. In the prejudices engendered by exclusive devotion to a single pursuit, they have lost one of the most important attributes of man,—the power to receive and appreciate truth.

It is a common saying, handed down with reverence in my own profession, where it is attested at once by Bacon and by Coke, that "every man owes a debt to his profession." If by this is meant that every man should seek to elevate his profession, and to increase its usefulness, the saying is a truism, although valuable as at least one remove from individual selfishness. But is it not too often construed so as to exclude exertion in any other walk, or to serve as a cloak for indifference to other things? Important as this debt may be,—and I will not disparage it,—not for this alone are we sent into the world. There are other debts which must not be postponed. Man was not thus fearfully and wonderfully made,—the cunningest pattern of excelling Nature,—endowed with infinite faculties,—traversing with the angels the blue floor of Heaven,—ranging with light from system to system of the Universe,—descending to the earth and receiving in bountiful largess all its hoarded treasures,—girdling the globe with the peaceful embrace of commerce,—imposing chains even upon the lawless sea,—making the winds and elements do his bidding,—summoning to his company all that is and all that has been the good and great of all times, exemplars of truth, liberty, and virtue, all the grand procession of history,—formed to throb at every deed of generosity and self-sacrifice, and to send forth his sympathies wider and sweeter than any south-wind blowing over beds of violets, until they reach the most distant sufferer,—formed for the acquisition of knowledge and of science,—gifted to enjoy the various feast of letters and art, the breathing canvas and marble, the infinite many-choired voices of all the sons of genius who have written or spoken, the beauty of mountain, field, and river, the dazzling drapery of the winter snow, the glory of sunset, the blushing of the rose,—man was not made with all these capacities, looking before and after, spanning the vast outstretched Past, penetrating the vaster unfathomable Future, with all its images of beauty, merely to follow a profession or a trade, merely to be a merchant, a lawyer, a mechanic, a soldier.

"So God created man in his own image; in the image of God created he him." The image of God is in the soul, and the young must take heed that it is not effaced by the neglect of any of the trusts they have received. They must bear in mind that there are debts other than to their profession or business, which, like gratitude, it will ever be their pleasure, "still paying, still to owe,"—which can be properly discharged only by the best employment of all the faculties with which they are blessed,—so that life shall be improved by culture and filled with works for the good of man.

In no respect would I weaken any just attachment to the business of one's choice. Goethe advised every one to read daily a short poem; and in the same spirit would I refine and elevate business by the chastening influence of other pursuits, by enlarging the intelligence, by widening the sphere of observation and interest, by awakening new sympathies.

In the faithful husbandry of time, in the aggregation of all its particles of golden sand, is the first stage of individual progress. With the living spirit of industry, the student will find his way easy. Difficulties cannot permanently obstruct his resolute career. He will remember "rare Ben Jonson," one of England's admired and most learned bards, working as a bricklayer with a trowel in his hand and a book in his pocket,—Burns, wooing his muse as he followed the plough on the mountain-side,—the beloved German Jean Paul, composing his earliest works by the music of the simmering kettles in his mother's humble kitchen,—and Franklin, while a printer's boy, straitened by small means, beginning those studies and labors which make him an example to mankind.

Seek, then, occupation; seek labor; seek to employ all the faculties, whether in study or conduct,—not in words only, but in deeds also, mindful that "words are the daughters of Earth, but deeds are the sons of Heaven." So shall you eat of that fabled fruit growing on the banks of the river of Delight, whereby men gain a blessed course of life without one moment of sadness. So shall your days be filled with usefulness,—

There is a legend of Friar Roger Bacon, so conspicuous in what may be called the mythology of modern science, which enforces the importance of seizing the present moment; nor could I hope to close this appeal with anything better calculated to impress upon all the lesson I have sought to teach. With wizard skill he had succeeded in constructing a brazen head, which, by unimaginable contrivance, after unknown lapse of time, was to speak and declare important knowledge. Weary with watching for the auspicious moment, which had been prolonged through successive weeks, he had sought the refreshment of sleep, leaving his man Miles to observe the head, and to awaken him at once, if it should speak, that he might not fail to interrogate it. Shortly after he had sunk to rest, the head spake these words, Time is. But the foolish guardian heeded them not, nor the commands of his master, whom he allowed to slumber unconscious of the auspicious moment. Another half-hour passed and the head spake the words, Time was, which Miles still heeded not. Another half-hour passed, and the head spake yet other words, Time is past, and straightway fell to the earth, shivered in pieces, with a terrible crash and strange flashes of fire, so that Miles was half dead with fear; and his master awoke to behold the workmanship of his cunning hand and the hopes he had builded thereupon shattered, while the voice from the brazen throat still sounded in his ears, Time is past!