The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-01-15
Mems Hats

k2zk s - - ------------------------ land shores when they had set sail for
 the southern lands. No matter how good q mans purpose may be, if he knows not the laws of navigation he cannot guide his boat to the right har- bor"
 What would you think of a laborer who should enter your sick room and say Discharge the doctor. Let me be your physician and prescribe your medicinesi" What would you think of a mechanic who would try to conduct a case in court when he did not know the first B C's of the law? What would you think of a minister who would try to build the Panama canal when he had never taken course in engineering? And yet the landubber trying to pilot ship the hodcarrier trying to cure sickness, the layman trying to draw up his own Hast will and testament" the clergy man trying to be the chief engineer of Brooklyn bridge, is no more absurd than the ordinary men and women try ing to perform their tasks in life with out intelligent knowledge of their duties.
 We must have intelligence to fit our selves for the duties of life. How do most successful men get that necessary intelligence? I will tell you It is by i'm proving the few moments, the few stray moments of the day and the evening, which are as sacred fragments, crowd around them. One farmer works and
 works hard, but he does things merely
 because his forfathers did the same thing. He plants wheat in one field be- | cause his father and grandfather planted wheat in that field. The farmer says to himself, T am farmer, but 1 am going to be an intelligent farmer" He sends to Washington and gets the latest re- ports from the agricultural department He buys the latest books sent out by our great agricultural colleges. He finds, by studying during the few stray min utes that come to him almost every day and night that his farm has just the right kind of soil for a peach orchard, He plants the peach trees. He stops growing wheat. He increases the value of his farm from sS per acre annually to $40 per acre. Think not l am telling an imaginary case. l am drawing my illustration from the owners of two small farms among the Michigan hills. Both the farmers worked hard, but the sue cessful farmer. by jealously guarding his spare moments each day, doubled and trebled and five times increased the val
 ue of his property,
 Look Out For Half Hours.
 Young man be careful about the few moments which you have been wasting each day. Guard those extra few mo- ments for intelligent study. Look out for that wasted half hour during the midday meal. Look out for the time you have been accustomed to spend every morning and evening in the street car on your way to business looking idly around or trying to pass it away in reading the advertisements or the sport Look out for that half hour which you fool away In your room before you turn in for the night. A gigantic work of intellectual growth can be done if only the few wasted moments of each day are gathered up for the close application to books. One day Philip of Macedon. father of Alexander the Great. was Dionysius. the son of Dionysus the great general of Syracuse. He said to the son: ''I do not believe your father could have ever written the odes and tragedies att tributed to his pen during his busy mili- tary life" My father" the son replied, wrote thise masterpieces during the time you and I have wasted at our tables in feasting," Young man, better improve your stray moments as did Dlonysius the
 Great than fritter them away as most folks are doing, with their lips pressed | against the chaice of pleasure. Better | consecrate whole days in lfe's journey | to making yourself better and truer than to drop them into uselessness, as we l lost our Thursday in the smooth waters
 of the Pacific in our journey around the world.
 1 But though many minutes, which in 1 the aggregate amount to many days. are | lost to the service of Christ on account | of our own follies, how many are lost | to Christ by reason of people who seem l to have nothing to do themselves and | who seem to be possessed with the idea l that we have nothing to do? Alas. how
 many mornings there have been when we
 arose with clear minds and hearts anx-
 ious for study. These thoughts, like a l great flock of flying doves, seemed ready | to roost on our study desk. Then ideas
 came not as solitary scouts, but mar 1 shaled in attack at our command. Then
 horror seemed to palsy our fingers The | doorbell rang. In came threatening no- mad ready to encamp upon our premises
 for the next two hours. Though a
 "squatter,'' he came not empty handed | He had piled upon his back all the gos- | sip and the small talk of the neighbor- | hood He had great caravans halted in | your front yard, with all the scandals and the bespoiled regulations of the homes he had been lately pestering. And he talks and he talks until he drives l away all our ideas and all our desire for work and all our ambition. and he leaves in his wake a wrecked day.
 "Destroyers of Time"
 | How many errands of mercy and pressing duties in the home have been
 ruined in the busy housewife's life by q | prolonged visit of one of these "daugh ters of iniquity'' called the destroyer l of time!' They criticise your husbands