XI.

PUNCTUALITY.

UNCTUALITY is styled by a good writer, "a

PUNC

homely but solid virtue." That it is "solid" is undeniable, but that it is "homely" is not so clear. Its opposite tardiness--is "homely," and deformed, too. No one on the way to success can fall in love with it. Young men who are on the wrong road may flirt with it, but all others avoid it. When Dr. Adam Clarke was a young man, he saw a copy of Erasmus's Greek Testament advertised by a bookseller. The next morning he rose early, went to the bookstore, and purchased the Testament. Two or three hours later, an eminent scholar called to buy the book. "You are too late," said the proprietor; "it is gone." "Too late!" exclaimed the scholar; "why, I came as soon as I had taken my breakfast." The bookseller answered, "Adam Clarke came and purchased it before breakfast." The punctuality that we commend means "before breakfast" sometimes. The maxim is, "Never put off till to-morrow what can be done to-day." Adam Clarke's motto was better than that, and more sure to win success, namely, "Never put off till after breakfast what can be done before." That is promptitude which wins.

By punctuality, we mean what Buxton meant by it when he wrote to his son in college. He said: "Be punctual. I do not mean merely being in time for lec

tures; but I mean that spirit out of which punctuality grows that love of accuracy, precision, and vigour which makes the efficient man; the determination that what you have to do shall be done in spite of all petty obstacles, and finished at once and finally. . . . . The punctuality which I desire for you involves and comprehends the exact arrangement of your time. It is a matter on which much depends. Fix how much time you will spend on each object, and adhere all but absolutely to your plan. If you wish to be the effective man, you must set about it earnestly and at once." The habit of being prompt once formed extends to everything— meeting friends, paying debts, going to church, reaching and leaving place of business, keeping promises, retiring at night and rising in the morning, going to the cars, lecture, and town-meeting, and, indeed, to every relation and act, however trivial it may seem to observers. "Say well is good, but do well is better." Nelson said that "he owed his success to being always fifteen minutes before the time." That is not the punctuality we commend, that is, if he referred to all engagements. There would be much waste of time in the universal application of this rule. To be fifteen minutes in advance of the time to meet a committee or to take the train, is wholly unnecessary. Four such engagements in a single day would waste an hour. We plead for promptness, right on time. It is not more difficult to establish that habit than it is the habit of being fifteen minutes in advance of time. Members of Congress used to set their watches by the appearance of John Quincy Adams in his seat. "Is it not time to call to order?" said a member to the speaker of the House. "No; Mr. Adams is not in his seat," an

swered the speaker. It is said of Astor, Vanderbilt, Hale, Lee, and others, that they rose at just such an hour in the morning, to a minute; and at night, though a house full of company would detain them, on precisely their hour for retiring they would bid the visitors. "good-night," and promptly retire. Some people might call them rude, or wanting in good breeding; but a strictly punctual man can afford to be called rude; at least, he can better afford that than to relinquish his excellent habit.

This virtue is especially needful in our times of steam and telegraphs, when rapidity of action is the order of the day. It is absolutely necessary to crowd more into a day and hour than it was a hundred years ago. "Old fogies" may protest againt it sharply, but the fact remains, nevertheless; and the wise way for men of action to do, is to accept the situation and go ahead. Sydney Smith happily put the matter thus: "In order to do anything in this world that is worth doing, we must not stand shivering on the bank, and thinking of the cold and the danger, but jump in and scramble through as well as we can. It will not do to be perpetually calculating and adjusting nice chances; it did all very well before the Flood, when a man could consult his friends upon an intended publication for a hundred and fifty years, and then live to see its success for six or seven centuries afterwards; but at present a man waits and doubts and hesitates, and consults his brother, and his uncle, and his first-cousins, and his particular friends, till one day he finds that he is sixty-five years of age; that he has lost so much time in consulting first-cousins and particular friends, that he has no more time left to follow their advice." Very true. The prompt man may

sometimes make a mistake. Who does not? But if a golden opportunity be lost, what matters it whether it be lost by haste or dilatoriness? The evil has come—the lost opportunity. How it came is of little consequence in comparison with the fact of its coming. It is the mission of promptness to seize opportunities, and make the most of them. At Arcola, Napoleon saw that the battle was going against him, and quickly as possible he rallied twenty-five horsemen, gave them trumpets, and ordered them to charge with a terrible blast and dash upon the foe. This prompt manœuvre turned the tide of battle and won the day. Such tactics were possible with him because his habit of promptness was unfaltering. Now is God's time both in business and religion.

Punctuality commands the confidence of the public. If a young man lacks executive ability, this virtue will go far to atone for that deficiency. His employer might dismiss him were he unpunctual at the same time that he is somewhat inefficient. But his habit of punctuality is so valuable, that his employer overlooks some shortcomings in order to avail himself of that. This virtue makes a man reliable. He is found at his post always. He is in his place at the time. Whoever else fails, he is on hand. And the young man who is never late wins the confidence of his employer. Washington's secretary, Hamilton, was always behind time, and on being reproved by the General for so bad a habit, the secretary excused himself on the ground that his watch did not keep correct time. "Then you must get a new watch," replied Washington, "or I must have another secretary." When the habit of being punctual is once thoroughly established, the young man will require no watch. That habit is better than a chronometer for him. His em

ployer may set his chronometer by him, as congressmen did their watches by John Quincy Adams. Such a young man makes himself indispensable in the office, shop, and counting-room, as well as on the farm.

A retired merchant once said to us: "If people would only be on time, how much trouble would be saved! This being behind time is the bane of mercantile life. Customers fail to redeem their promises. Borrowers forget their pledges to lenders. One man fails to meet his obligations promptly, and this compels another to disappoint his creditors; and so on through the list. If our warehouses could do as our banks do, insist, under the penalty of a protest, on meeting payments punctually, a vast amount of anxiety, perplexity, and disaster would be prevented. Were it not for this one sound rule of policy which the banks adopt and enforce, I am not sure that commercial transactions would not be swamped in unavoidable confusion." After a short pause he continued: "It is too much so everywhere. You want a carpenter to-morrow; he does not come as he agrees. You ask the bootmaker to complete your boots at a given time, but they are not done. The tailor promises your suit of clothes in one week, and you get them in two weeks. The painter comes the day after he promised to come. And so the mass of men are behind time continually, causing themselves trouble, and everybody else. The result is, that thousands of these laggards find, to their grief, that failure and ruin, unlike themselves, are never behind time."

Another merchant, who has retired with a fortune, told the author that the secret of his success was promptness of action, thus being able to take advantage of the market. So Amos Lawrence said: "The