months and years are lost."

By the street of by and by one arrives at the house of
never.--CERVANTES.

"Lose this day by loitering--'t will be the same story tomorrow, and
the next more dilatory."

Let's take the instant by the forward top.--SHAKESPEARE.

"Haste, post, haste! Haste for thy life!" was frequently written upon
messages in the days of Henry VIII of England, with a picture of a
courier swinging from a gibbet. Post-offices were unknown, and letters
were carried by government messengers subject to hanging if they
delayed upon the road.

Even in the old, slow days of stage-coaches, when it took a month of
dangerous traveling to accomplish the distance we can now span in a few
hours, unnecessary delay was a crime. One of the greatest gains
civilization has made is in measuring and utilizing time. We can do as
much in an hour to-day as they could in twenty hours a hundred years
ago.

"Delays have dangerous ends." Caesar's delay to read a message cost
him his life when he reached the senate house. Colonel Rahl, the
Hessian commander at Trenton, was playing cards when a messenger
brought a letter stating that Washington was crossing the Delaware. He
put the letter in his pocket without reading it until the game was
finished, when he rallied his men only to die just before his troops
were taken prisoners. Only a few minutes' delay, but he lost honor,
liberty, life!

Success is the child of two very plain parents--punctuality and
accuracy. There are critical moments in every successful life when if
the mind hesitate or a nerve flinch all will be lost.

"Immediately on receiving your proclamation," wrote Governor Andrew of
Massachusetts to President Lincoln on May 3, 1861, "we took up the war,
and have carried on our part of it, in the spirit in which we believe
the Administration and the American people intend to act, namely, as if
there were not an inch of red tape in the world." He had received a
telegram for troops from Washington on Monday, April 15; at nine
o'clock the next Sunday he said: "All the regiments demanded from
Massachusetts are already either in Washington, or in Fortress Monroe,
or on their way to the defence of the Capitol."

"The only question which I can entertain," he said, "is what to do; and
when that question is answered, the other is, what next to do."

"The whole period of youth," said Ruskin, "is one essentially of
formation, edification, instruction. There is no