The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1914-10-28
DR.. Marden's
Uplift Talks
BY ORiSON SWEET MARDEN.
Copyright By Mcclure Newspaper Syndicate

ID USKIN kept on his study table q
IN handsome block of ~chalcedony, OF
which was engraved To-day"
We all know people who, according
to their own account, would be very
philanthropic If they had but the
time; who would visit the sick, relieve
the poor, and comfort the widow and
the fatherless in their Affections, did
leisure permit.
Others would become great authors
singers, inventors, statesmen If they
only had the time. But, alas! they
have absolutely no time-not more
than one or two or three hours a day
at most, and what does that amount
to?
An education that would adorn q
man of letters, or qualify a college
professor, has been secured in the
fragments of leisure that are OFTEN
wasted because they are 80 brlef.
Some people will pick up a good
education in the odds and ends or
time which others carelessly throw
away, as one man saved a fortune by
small economies which others disdaln
to practice. Who is too busy to give
an hour a day for self-improvement!
Great characters have ever been
misers of their moments; they have
always placed high value upon tnelr
time, and l have never known a man
to do anything very great in this
world who set a light value upon his
time. A youth has the ability that
does things when he sets a high value
upon his time and is always trying TO
improve himself in his spare moments.
I have never known such a youth who
has not turned out well.
You will never find" time for any
thing. II you want time, you must
make 1t.
There are moments" says Dean
Afford, (which are worth more than
years. We cannot help it. There is
no proportion between spaces Of time
in importance or in value. A stray,
unthought-of five minutes may contain
the event of a life. And this all-im-
portant moment-who can tell when
it will be upon us?
Drive the minutes, or they will
drive you"
Many a great man has snatched his
reputation from odd bits Of time which
others, who wonder at their failure to
get on, throw away. In Dante's time
nearly every literary mar in Italy was
a Woodworking merchant, physician,
statesman, judge or soldier.
Rufus Choate used to lay out a
course Of study in the classics prac-
tically parallel with that of the young
men in Harvard university, and by
improving the few spare moments
which his immense practice left him
would keep pace with the students,
year after year.
Macaulay wrote his Lays Of An
cient Rome" in the war Office while
holding the post Of secretary Of war.
Mr.. Gladstone also kept in front Of
him this WORT: To-day" This was
to be a perpetual reminder to him Of
the rapid fight of time, the rapid slip
ping through his fingers Of his pre-
cious life capital, and it was his de-
termination never to allow al hour to
pass through his hands from which he
had not extracted every possibility.
He vas always storing up bits Of pre-
cious knowledge, valuable information,
and this colossal accumulation, this
marvellous self-improvement and self
culture, were responsible for a large
part of his gigantic achievement.
What a rebuke is such a life to thou
sands of young men and women who
throw away whole months, and even
years. of that which the Grand Old
Man" boarded up to even the smallest
fragments.
Success in life is what Garfield
called a question Of margins" Tell
me how a young man uses the little
ragged edges of time while waiting for
meals or tardy appointments, after his
days work is done, or evenings-what
he is revolving In his mind at every
opportunity-and I will tell you what
that young mans success will be.
The worst Of a lost hour is not so
much in the wasted time as in the
wasted power. IF you r idle, you
are on the way to ruin, and there are
few stopping places upon it. 1t is
rather a precipice than a road" said
Henry Ward Beecher.
Let no moment pass until you have
extracted from 1t every possibility.
Watch every grain in the h%our-glass.
Yet your record be for the coming
new year: mo moment wasted, no
power perverted, no opportunity neg
lected."
ZONE time ago I read a story about