Year: 1872

DaoA luaE EASAhCs


Engineers say that if we take the
running time Of river steamboat
60 be eighteen miles an hour it re-
gUires as much additional fuel to
push her one mile an hour more, as
isrequired for the normal speed Of
eighteen miles. Long experience
and careful calculation have con
yinced railroad managers that thir
ty miles an hour is as rapid a rate
of speed as can be secured pfDfita-
bly, on our American Railroads
with their heavy grades and sharp
curves. English railways 60 more
rapidly because straighter and more
level. We can make greater speed
here, but the wear and tear of every
additional mile per hour is out OF
all proportion to the increase OF
speed that is gained. Stage-drivers
calculatc that they can drive twenty
miles day if they are content with
six miles an hour. But If they
drive ten miles an hour their horses
cannot average without injury more
than nine miles a day; that is, they
cannot travel quite an hour q dag
and keep it up week after week.


In other words, it is not the
amount, but it is the intensity CT
work that wears. Men kin them
selves not by working too much,
but by working too hard. Is is
high pressure that strains the boil
ers.


These Illustrations enforce 4 prin
ciple which is as applicable to the
human mind as to machinery.
Those men accomplish the most
who work leisurely. Ii is better to
drive your work Il an to let your
work drive YOU. People that are
always in hurry often do the least.
The energy that should be utilized
in their work Is wasted in their
haste. Americans are not too in
dustfious, but they are too intense.
IL is not he who is careful and
troubled about many things whose
many things are accomplished most
successfully, Martha IS not always
the best housekeeper. Never man
accomplished more in three short
years than Jesus of Nazareth. And
he was never hurried.


Ministers particularly need to
"slOw their engines" They do not
perhaps work too much, but they
work under too much pressure.
They ought To rule their parish;
their parish rules them. The min
lister that writes all his sermons on
Saturday, and sets up into the
small hours of Sunday morning TO
complete them, uses energy enough
in composing one discourse to com
pose liAlf-a dozen.


Haste is the besetUing sin of
America. We do not run awith pa
-tience" the race that is set before
US. There is not a day that goes
by that we not see in manuscript,
book or paper, the signs of hurry
that is the curse of American litera-
ture. Our artists are in a hurry.
and good ideas are half drawn be
cause they have not time to study
their subject. Our engravers are in
a hurry; and good blocks are spoilt
by skillful workmen who have not
time to be careful. Our editors are
in hurry; and their crude thoughts
are embodied in editorials written
st a dash; brilliant, but ineffective,
because not matured. Our writer's
are in a hurry; and American books
are slovenly in scholarship and
in execution, and marred
by rhetorical and sometimes even
grammatical blunders that would
disgrace a college composition.
Our merchants are in hurry and
they launch out in wild specuiations
that bring ninety three ont of every
hundred into bankruptcy. Our min
listers are in hurry; and they sac
rilice themselves, without serving
their parishes, by working under an
unnatural excitement.


We hear on every side exhorta
tions to activity, industry, energy.
We would fain exhort to calmness,
sobriety, moderation, leisurely in
dustry.


But there is no use. We shall
not even heed our own sermon; and
of course no one else will do so.


1t is nevertheless true that The
American people need nothing so
much as to "slow their engines"