we had no right, and which was not intentionally submitted to our thoughtless expenditure.
It is often alleged by young persons as being of no use for them to be punctual, when others are not so, and that they only waste their own time by being ready at the appointed moment. All this may be too true; for parents and seniors in a family often have themselves to blame for the want of punctuality in the junior members. Yet is it of no importance, whether we are the causes or the subjects of injury—whether we practise injustice towards others, or only endure it ourselves? Surely, no generous mind can hesitate a moment which alternative to choose, especially when such choice refers not to any single act, but to a course of conduct pursued through a whole life-time. Of what material consequence will it appear to us on the bed of death, that certain individuals, at different times of our lives, have kept us waiting for a few hours, which might certainly have been better employed? But it will be of immense importance at the close of life, if, by our habitual want of punctuality, we have been the cause of an enormous waste of time, the property of countless individuals, to whom we can make no repayment for any single act of such unlicensed robbery. It is the principle of integrity, then, upon which our punctuality must be founded, and the law of love will render it habitual.
As there are few persons who deliberately intend to be idle; so there are perhaps still fewer who deliberately intend to waste their own time, or that of their friends. It is the lapse of years, the growth of experience, and the establishment of character on some particular basis, which tell the humiliating truth, that time has been culpably and lamentably wasted. There are other delusions, however, besides those already specified, under which this fruitless expenditure is unconsciously carried on; and none is per-
