enjoyment. If you can glory in the morning sunshine and know the peace of a summer night, you are luckier far than the millionaire, worried and anxious with colossal undertakings. If you can sit down of an evening and enjoy a book until bedtime, you may know that you are among the fortunate ones of the earth. Money cannot buy the moral uplifting of the man in harmony with Nature, who sees in the starry heavens the fields of Paradise, and knows that "God is seen God, in the Star, in the Stone, in the Flesh, in the Soul, in the Sod."

Unless we can do little things well we can never do big things. We must ennoble our little duties, and we shall find them grow into big achievements. Little acts of thoughtfulness, little kindnesses, little tendernesses, little charities, make up the sum total of a large, generous and lovable mind. Little tasks. well done may make up a lifetime of fruitful labour far more useful to the world than the spasmodic effort to do herculean work which, in any case, could only be accomplished by a continual application to a thousand trifling details. It is far better to perform a small undertaking than to dream a big one and fail through lack of application.

There is a very thin dividing line between success and failure. The man who succeeds owes his success to the possession of a little more ability or industry than the man who most likely envies him his "good

fortune."

He seizes the little opportunities that other men miss, and finds that they open the way to big advantages that he never suspected were within his reach. Men in lonely farms have educated themselves by seizing odd moments for reading. The habit of using time that other people waste enables men to outstrip their competitors in the race o life. A small nut becoming loose can stop a great machine, and a small mistake from carelessness or lack of observation or of knowledge can ruin a great enterprise.

Use the little gifts that life gives you. Do every little kindness you can. Use every little moment you can. Learn a little poem every day, and memorise a few lines of good prose. Make a point of doing a little more than you are paid to do, and try and do a little more to-day than you did yesterday. You will be astonished at the growth of your knowledge, the increase of your capacity, and the enlargement of your opportunities. "To him that hath shall be given." All that you learn will stand you in good stead some day. Neither your time nor your labour will be wasted. You will gradually gain those added accomplishments and those extra capabilities that distinguish the successful man from his fellows. Above all, watch your little failings and faults, and weed them out. Never despise them, for they grow big, just as little virtues do.

All your talents are small compared with what they will become if you cultivate them carefully. Be content to make gradual progress so long as it really is progress, and then, when you look at the end of all to find "a little garden blossom," you will discover with surprise that what you really have cultivated is no mere garden plot, but a veritable and worthy portion of the Paradise of achievement.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE ACTIVE MIND

'An action will not be right unless the will be right, for from thence is the action derived."

SENECA.

HE more we develop our mental powers the

THE

more we recognise the necessity of arraigning all popular fetishes before the bar of our reason. The hustle habit ought to be summarily tried and quickly condemned. People generally hustle when they should not, and do not hustle when they should. The only time when it is permissible to hustle is when you get out of your morning train (after you have given your breakfast a chance to digest) and want to hurry to the office to get on with your work. Tearing about, shouting, and making yourself a nuisance by knocking things over and racking other people's nerves, does not make for efficiency. When a man does that for a while he tires himself physically, and cannot keep up the pressure. Working under forced draught is all very well when it is absolutely necessary. Travelling under full steam is quite

good enough for the whole of the working day, and the physical and mental engines will work much more efficiently under steady pressure than under intermittent strains of forced draught.

Did you ever try to operate an adding machine? In many banks these machines perform the work of several clerks. You simply press the adding keys one after another as necessary, and then, by a pull of a lever, the printed total is before your eyes. So long as you do your work accurately your totals will be correct, because the machine is infallible. Immediately you get in a hurry you are liable to errors.

In dealing with intricate and delicate work, it is always more satisfactory to go steadily at it, as you will save time and labour in the end. Immediately you start rushing about, you excite your brain and prevent it thinking clearly and logically. You can train your mind to work quickly and accurately, but that is quite different from hustling it.

Like many another proverb, the saying, "Time is money," is so hackneyed that it conveys little meaning. It is like the pocket-handkerchief that you cannot find because it is in your pocket where it ought to be. If you spend your morning playing billiards with a man who might possibly give you orders later on, instead of calling on three or four