PUNCTUALITY.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1586, 16 June 1887, Page 3

PUNCTUALITY.

One of the many forms of selfishness la a want of punctuality, the root of all evil. If your father is a man who counts muoh upon the pleasure of having &U hia family with him at hta meals, you may, by your dilatorines*, quite spoil them for him ; any proof of a child's indifference being a pcor appetiser. -Nor is it merely with the enjoyment of his meal that you may interfeto, but wl'h its digestion • sinco the most material functions of our material bodied ace greatly aeaieted, or greatly hindered, by moral agencies.

The unpunctual man Is apt to think that the greatest evil he occasions by his special infirmity is temporary inconvenience or disappointment. But this is not so. If one of hie delays should disturb the arrangement for one day only of a single person, he may congratulate himself. Order Ib heaven's first law, and the second, regular routine, la like untu It, If the earth and the moon were to loiter on their ocurae, and aooompliah their revolutions at unoei tain time), and m uncertain periods, everything here would be out of joint. And bo is everything out of joint, that is m the Bphere of duty and oooupation of the proorastinator.

If the duty that belongs to one hour be deferred to another, they teem subjected to a process that merges one m another, until all are reducod to a single vanishing point, and leave ho record behind them. What bitter disappointment, and serious annoyance and loss, may come from a letter a little too late for the p~st —a bill paid after the promised tlme-»-an appointment not kept —a commission deferred 1 Note for yourselves and think on these things;

Punctuality is essential to another virtue—reliableness. Do all that you promise to do, and all that you*are rightfully required and expeoted to dp, aa oertainly, bo far as i\ depends upon yourself, as the sue rises and Bats, so that the hearts of all with whom you are In any way conneoted may " safely trust " m you, Then yon will become " pillars of support" m the family and m society, instead of broken reeds,

The comfort and satisfaction of dealing with the truely reliable 1b immense, as, of course, 1b the misery of all interooorse with the unreliable. Go when you Bay you will go ; come whon you say you will oome ; do thla and that when you say you will do ir, even if it be a little thing, without being deterred by any but in■operable* obstaolea.