Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-04-09
SUNDAY MORNING TALK.
The Craze for Saving Time.

If there is one characteristic more than
another which d:fferentiates modern men
from the ancieEtS. il is the cageTncSs of
the former to save time. Why are the rail-
road companies seeking constantly to re-
duce the running time between the principal
cities, and the steamships to shorten the
ocean voyage between the western and
eastern continents? Simply because their
patrons yearn to make time. Survey a
typical American crowd eager to go some
where. How they josie and elbow one an
other. The bigger the city, the more fierce
the scramble ard rush. The disease of New
York is not confined to the dwellers on
Manhattan or Long Island, but there you
have on a large and conspicuous scale what
can be parallelcd the country over-nam ely,
the hurried rush from one thing TO another,
business engagements, social diversions, in
tellectual instruction and even religious ap-
pointments.
Now this craze for saving time is not
wholly bad. Did not the copy books of our
childhood in aphorisflS Of beautiful script
at the head of the page frequently admon-
ish us as TO the worth of TIM? Were we
not repeatedly told that life was short, that
time was fleeing. that time was money,
that we must seize the day. Yes time is u
valuable commodity, too precious to be
wasted. But the point is, Goes the hurry
ing, hustling man always save so much time
as he thinks he VIII by catching the 100
train instead of the S:U2? VIII the record
Of the days work show more actually ac-
compiished than if he had waited to chat
al the breakfast table with his children
about their school life, or paused to say
good morning to his neighbor in the front
yard? Somehow in this rushing age we are
losing the old-faShioned, stately civillties
and courteSies which belonged to more
leisurely era. Then men had time to know
roJJ hlISi
ness acquaintanceship and women had time
to talk over with one another the deeper
interests of motherhood and of woman
hood. How much better that was than
the insipid, superficial talk of two or three
afternoon teas sandwiched in between 4
and o'clock.
Granted that the man who rushes about
may save a little time, but does he not
often lose his temper and his manners?
Does he not pay too high price for the
best seat in the public conveyance, or for
the extra hour and a quarter he saves by
keeping his nerves at high tension all day
long?
l should like to put these two questions to
the worshipers of this fetch. First, what
are you saving time for, and secondly, what
will you do with the time that you save?
Oh, you want more time for your business,
you say. But when you have gotten it and
the bigger business, why do you still want
more time? Why, for more business OF
course. But isn't there to be any let-up,
or is this drive to last forever? Some
times men have to have enforced periods
of leisure, long illnesses in order to realize
that they are in this world to do some
thing besides huStling.
And when you get to Chicago on the spe-
cial new limited, what are you going to do
with your extra time? When you get to
that golden period of retirement from bust
ness, what are you going to do? May it
not be then that time will hang heavy on
your hands? You will have saved more
time than you will have any practical use
for. If you had saved a little less time
and meanwhile laid up little more culture
and more sympathy with your fellow men
and more delight in Gods world, you would
be far happier the rest of your days
Many of us believe that time melts in
due season into eternity. That is, that
another life of endless durations succeeds
these brief human years. Why not then
let the thought of eternity of an ample
sufficiency of time steady and calm US in
the midst of these rushing years. Let us
not be troubled If We do not achieve every
thing we would like to do here in the flesh.
We may be able to realize in that vaster
world some ambitions, to cultivate which
time was denied US here At any rate, let
US not grasp SO greedily at every minute
slipping by and use 1t so selfishly that We
shall have no treasure laid up for us In
heaven THE larson.