lurry of pleasure. I feel very
sorry for these busy folk. Their energy is prodigious. But, for all
that, they are losing life's best. Surely William Cowper had a secret
in his soul when he told us that, in his mad career, John Gilpin lost
the wine!

'And now, as he went bowing down,
His reeking head full low,
The bottles twain behind his back
Were shattered at a blow

Down ran the wine into the road,
Most piteous to be seen,
Which made his horses' flanks to smoke
As they had basted been.

It is very easy to go too fast. In his _Forest_, Mr. Stewart White
gives us some lessons in bushmanship. 'As long as you restrain
yourself,' he says, 'to a certain leisurely plodding, you get along
without extraordinary effort; but even a slight increase of speed drags
fiercely at your feet. One good step is worth six stumbling steps; go
only fast enough to assure that good one. An expert woods-walker is
never in a hurry.' I was chatting the other day with the captain of a
great steamship. The vessel is capable of steaming at the rate of
seventeen knots an hour; but I noticed from the log that she never
exceeds fifteen. I asked the reason. 'It is too expensive!' the
captain answered. And then he told me the difference in the
consumption of coal between steaming at fifteen and steaming at
seventeen knots an hour. It was astounding. I recognized at once his
wisdom in keeping the margin. When I next meet my busy brother, I
shall tell him the story--if he can spare the time to listen. For,
apart from the expense to himself of driving the engines at that high
pressure, and apart from the loss of the wine, I feel sure that the
folk who most need him love the ministry of a man with a margin. Even
as I write, there rush back upon my mind the memories of the great
doctors and eminent lawyers whose biographies I have read. How careful
these busy men were to convey a certain impression of leisureliness!
It will never do for a doctor to burst in upon his poor feverish
patient, and throw everything into commotion. And see how composedly
the lawyer listens to his client's tale! Wise men these; and I must
not be too proud to learn from them.

Great souls have ever been leisurely souls. I have no right to allow
the rush and throb and tear of life to rob me of my restfulness. I
must keep a quiet heart. I must be jealous of my margins. I must find
time to climb the hills, to scour the valleys, t