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laSSINC, : ?'/-HE TIME
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It Is the Great Prob- /Y /\(\ \ '
lem of Many. They \ 1 Real Possession.
V,'ill Find the Time jk ■ USE IT. It Is Short
Passes Soon Enough, :
and Will Look Back llr |MMF/ / Enough.
to Regret the Time x\X/ \ \
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: ACH of us has at the most a few
vSpTTjA y ears to spend on this earth.
We spend the first years hop
mg great things, the next few
.O/jWi years dropping illusions one by
3’V 1 ' one ’ the l as s few years regret
-4,‘*' tmg ie mista heS’ he missed oppor
tunities and the wasted drne of the
whole life. And after that comes
the grave, and perhaps a new shuf-
I I file of the cards and a new
I | beginning here where we left
off.
On this earth, so full of opportunities, filled
with wonders, surrounded by the mystery of
the infinite, man appears for a second—a sec
ond at least in the eyes of infinitude. And dur
ing his little second on earth HE ACTUALLY
DEVOTES MOST OF HIS ATTENTION
TO DISCOVERING SOME WAY “OF
PASSING THE TIMES'
♦ ♦ «
Have you noticed how the people pass the
time, how they try to make the hours fly by
unnoticed?
They walk into a railroad station. They
put a penny in a machine to make it play some
foolish tune. Then they listen, passing the
time, the brain dead.
They go to a restaurant. They order what
they want. Immediately a terrific noise be
gins. A band is playing, and again the time,
passes, and again thought is impossible.
They meet each other. They talk certain
definite platitudes, weather, baseball, jokes,
nothing in particular and again the time
passes—and it passes very fast.
The husband goes home and tells his little
trashy story of the day to his wile, and that
passes time. And then she tells her little trashy
story about nothing at all —and that passes
some more time
And by and by they go to bed and sleep—
and that passes about one-third of all their
time
And so it goes.
* « «
Men play cards in the train to pass the
time. Men lean back and sleep ori their way
from one big city to another to pass the time.
They forget how much time they will have to
sleep in the grave; they forget how rapidly the
time will pass then For a man dead, like a man
asleep, when he wakes again doesn’t know
whether a second or* a million years have
passed
“How shall we pass the time till supper?”
and “How shall we pass the time till so and so
comes home?” Those are the questions that
modern human beings ask
ft ft ft
There are books that need reading, there
is thinking that every man and woman and
child can do. There are problems that need to
be settled. There is work that can de done to
develop the mind or the muscle or the char
acter
There is a good task for every hour, a task
that is better for the mind than idle rest, which
is death intellectual.
.Take any one of the men and women who
devote their energies now to “passing the
time” and put that man or woman on another
planet, on Mars with its great canals, or Saturn
with the rings, or Jupiter with the many
moons You could not imagine that human
being content “to pass the time." Eyes and
ears would be open, all of the senses would be
awake, eager to study the wonders of the new
and mysterious environment.
There is nothing more marvellous on any
planet, at least so far as our intellectual ca-
/
pacify for receiving impressions goes, than
upon this planet of our own.
Every little blade of grass growing, every
change of the clouds and the wind, every ex
pression on a child’s face, every indication of
happiness m sorrow among human beings, is
worthy of the earnest attention of a man—pro
viding he is fit to be called a man.
ft ft >
There is occupation for every waking sec
ond—but the great majority of us when not
worrying about our mistakes in the past, or
struggling for a dollar in the present, or fret
ting about an uncertain future, ACTUALLY
TRY TO PASS OUR TIME
For this as a race we cannot blame our
selves. For only since yesterday we have come
up from the animal condition, where the brain
was little developed, where the mind was noth
ing and where the muscles and appetite were
all. The latest faculty acquired is the faculty
most easily fatigued—thought and abstract
speculation are our recently acquired faculties.
It is probable that not one man in a thou
sand, even among the ablest men, is capable or
four hours’ actual thought in the day. It is
probable that the average human being lives
and dies without four hours of real thought in
his whole life.
It is also probable that you. assuming you
to be a good, fair individual, might be capable
of fifteen minutes thought per day. If you
should try it. the fifteen minutes would soon
grow into thirty minutes, and eventually you
might be able to spend an hour in actual
thought on a problem of importance to your
seif and to others.
That would be better than many nickel-in
the-slot machines or manj' brass bands, better
than many bridge games, baseball games and
poker games Better than many hours and
weeks of gossip without meaning
“The day I t
will come, y F7
at the best, /
when you 1 /
will look
hack from mtL l
the edge or f /IJ
the grave
to the be-
ginning,
years ago,
and wish RIfIMKS
ihat you
could have
thoseyears
again, 99
A good book in your pocket, a definite
Gain of thought occupying and interesting
your mind—those are the friends to take on a
railroad journey, no s a pack of cards or a two
legged gossip.
The day will come, at the best, when you
will look back from the edge of the grave to
the beginning, years ago, and wish that you
could have those years again. The day will
come when you will long for the hour that you
are wasting to-day, the hour that you are
“passing,’ and wish that you had a chance to do
what might have been done
Happy the man for whom time passes all
too quickly, and unhappy he who, living with
two eyes and two ears and a brain that can
read and understand ii such a world as this,
actually finds it necessary “to pass the time.”