"The work of our hands-establish Thou it, How often with thoughtless lips we pray, But He who sits in the heavens shall say, 'Is the world of your hands so fair and fit That ye dare thus pray?' Safely we answer, ‘Lord, make it fit— وو The work of our hands-establish Thou it." CHAPTER XVIII In That Which is Least NE of the secrets of a full and rich life is in being always watchful of the little things. We could accomplish marvels in the quarter hours we are wasting. We hear of men who have learned a language at their dressingbureaus, or have read volumes in the minutes they have had to wait in reception rooms of friends they were calling upon, of others who have memorized poems in walking about the country. Notable achievements in the way of study and research have been made by men with only minutes of leisure, little interstices of time between their absorbing occupation in great tasks. There have been men with feeble health, who could work only in little quarter hours, who have achieved amazing results in a short lifetime, or men with poor eyes, who could read only a few minutes at a time, but who have amassed great stores of knowledge and attained distinction, even eminence, in years of masterful diligence. The way we use the fragments of our time, what we do with the moments, determines largely what we will make ourselves in the end. Hurry is a dreadful waste of time. A great surgeon said to his assistants when he was beginning a serious operation, "Do not be in a hurry, gentlemen; we have no time to lose.” We never can do our work with celerity, and we never can do it well, if we hurry. We must have full possession of all our powers if we would do our best. “He that believeth," wrote the great prophet, "shall not be in haste," and one rendering by scholars is, "He that believeth shall not fuss." Some one says: "Energy is not mere fuss. It is often a high achievement of energy to say 'Peace, be still!'” In recent years few words have been so much in use and few have come to mean so much as the word conservation. It means stopping the waste, utilizing every particle, whether of material or energy. In certain lines of industry a great deal is made of byproducts. A by-product is something produced in addition to the principal product. In making gas, for instance, there is a large waste in what is called coal-tar. Coal-tar is now used in the process of dyeing and is very valuable. Thus the waste is turned to profit. In the refining of oil the by-products, such as benzine, naptha and paraffin, are captured from the waste and are very important. The same conservation should be practiced in life itself. Most people employ but a fragment of the capacity of their life and then allow great measures of capacity to lie undeveloped, and in the end to atrophy. A volume could be filled with a description of a human hand, its wonderful structure, and the things it can be trained to do. Yet how many hands ever reach the limit of their possible achievements? Think of the powers folded up in a human brain and of the little of all these powers most of us ever bring out in life. Now and then a man starts in ignorance and poverty and reaches a greatness in ability and in |