the time
for action comes.

+Procrastination, anxiety, and prudence.+--Procrastination sacrifices
the future to the present. Anxiety sacrifices the present to the future.
Prudence co-ordinates present and future in a consistent whole, in which
both present and future have their proper place and due consideration.

THE PENALTY.

Imperfect co-ordination, whether by procrastination or by worry, brings
discord. The parts of life are at variance with each other. The
procrastinator looks on past indulgence with remorse and disgust; for
that past indulgence is now loading him down with present disabilities
and pains. He looks on the future with apprehension, for he knows that
his present pleasures are purchased at the cost of misery and
degradation in years to come.

The man in whom worry and anxiety have become habitual likewise lives a
discordant life. He looks out of a joyless present, back on a past
devoid of interest, and forward into a future full of fears.

CHAPTER IX.

Space.

As all thoughts and actions take place in time, so all material things
exist in space. Everything we have must be in some place. To give things
their right relations in space is one of the important aspects of
conduct.

THE DUTY.

+A place for everything, and everything in its place.+--Things that
belong together should be kept together. Dishes belong in the cupboard;
clothes in the closet; boxes on the shelves; loose papers in the waste
basket; tools in the tool-chest; wood in the wood-shed. And it is our
duty to keep them in their proper place, when not in actual use. In
business it is of the utmost importance to have a precise place for
everything connected with it. The carpenter or machinist must have a
place for each tool, and always put it there when he is through using
it. The merchant must have a definite book and page or drawer or
pigeon-hole for every item which he records. The scholar must have a set
of cards or envelopes or drawers or pockets alphabetically arranged in
which he keeps each class of facts where he can turn to it instantly.
This keeping things of a kind together, each kind in a place by itself,
is system. Without system nothing can be managed well, and no great
enterprise can be carried on at all.

THE VIRTUE.

+Orderliness is manly and virtuous because it keeps things under our own
control, and makes them the expression of our will.+--The orderly and
systematic man can manage a thousand de