greater assurance of that immortality of fame he mocked at." Charles Lamb, the essayist, spent his days in a South Sea Counting House, transferring figures from one ledger to another, but in his "margin of time," during evening hours, the great man's magnetic personality and deep humanity asserted themselves and were fittingly expressed to the world. This is the man who may have instinctively disliked a person whom he had never met, but who had such a faculty of obtaining points of contact with men that his words, "I can't hate a fellow I know," have become famous, as well as indicative of real humanism. Wordsworth was a Government employee, and, with his sister, lived for many years on a salary of $7.50 per week; the great poet often said that this period of relative poverty, when the strictest economy had to be exercised in order that the necessities of life could be obtained, was one of the happiest and most wholesome periods of his life. Hawthorne was a Custom House inspector; Balzac, an unsuccessful publisher and Oliver Wendell Holmes, a doctor.

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), the son of a poor baker, was a Polish physician, devoted to his profession and subject to call day and night; yet he found time to elaborate a system of astronomy, by the adaptation of which man's outlook upon the universe was fundamentally changed. He "perforated the walls of his humble dwelling that he might note the stars in their passage, keeping for years the momentous secret in his bosom, lest the stake be his destiny." Benjamin Huntsman (1704-1776), the inventor of cast steel, was a poor

English watch-maker. John Locke (1632-1704), the founder of English Sensationalism and the Philosophy of Relativity, was a student of medicine and a layman. Heinrich Schlieman, the foremost archæologist of his day, sold sauerkraut and herring in a small German village, but so improved the spare moments which his business offered, that at forty years of age he was a noted linguist, and, retiring from a trade in which he had been quite successful, he was enabled to devote his energies to scientific research and the free development of his wonderful talents. Sir John Lubbock became one of the world's highest authorities on pre-historic archæology by the use of his "leisure time" when freed from his arduous mercantile responsibilities.

Most of the great generalizations in Physics have been made by men whose time was well occupied by the demands of their vocation, yet in their margin of time they found opportunities for doing immortal work for the world. Robert Mayer, the discoverer of the law of the conservation of energy, was a physician; Carnot, the founder of thermo-dynamics, an engineer; Joule, who first gave the mechanical equivalent of heat, was a brewer, and it was Joseph Priestley, a theologian and philosopher, who discovered oxygen. Photography has been developed far more by the dabblings and interest of amateurs than by the research efforts of skilled professionals and specialists. As we study the lives of the men responsible for the industrial revolution of Great Britain, we find that most of the great inventions were made by men utilizing to its fulness, with enthusiasm and vision, their "margin of time."

Herbert Spencer has truly said that the education which made England what she has been during the past century, "got itself taught in nooks and corners," and he might fittingly have added "in spare moments and by candle-light."

To kill time is to murder opportunity. In one respect, we each have a definite and uniform income where all mankind is placed upon a level plane of absolute equality; twenty-four hours per day income is granted to each of us by the Law of the Universe. Time is the raw material of all life. Its full value, like the full value of money, is realized, not by hoarding it, but by spending it for what will bring the greatest return. How are we spending it? We can save it only by using it, and proper use brings dividends which give satisfaction and real pleasure as well as benefits to the world. The way one uses the margin of time, it has been well said, shows the line of movement of the mind and soul and reveals the ideal. He who lives most, thinks most clearly. His life is gauged by thoughts and his usefulness by the transference of his thoughts into deeds. Life must be measured by depth, rather than length, by intensity and completeness, thought and action, rather than by time; by hours, days and years utilized rather than by periods passed. Dante said, "For he who knows most, him the loss of time most grieves."

A life is noble or ignoble, depending upon the spirit which actuates it and not upon the vocation adopted; upon its appreciation and the fullest use of its faculties and opportunities and not upon its bank-book, worldly notoriety and emulation. Time

is precious; neglect of opportunities for service is as serious as neglect and atrophy of innate powers.

"Life is too short to waste.

"Twill soon be dark;

Up! Mind thine own aim, and

God speed the mark!"

-Emerson.

We really make ourselves what we wish to be, and a life without a worth-while work, useful interests and time well spent is useless. Ruskin says that such a life is guilt that brings its own punishment. Yet the vast majority of men dream contentedly on; mere automatons, spending certain hours to acquire money, while they waste the golden opportunities for world service and mind development in their "leisure" moments. Moreover, in their vocation, time might be immeasurably intensified and glorified by imagination, ideals and worthy purpose. There is no limit to the opportunities that can be discovered by the growing, wideawake man of keen thought and vision, but to the average salary or wage-earner, life is a monotonous journey of routine and drudgery, with the days dropping one by one into oblivion.

Seneca, the Roman philosopher and statesman, said, "We all complain of the shortness of time, and yet we have more than we know what to do with. Our lives are spent either in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do. We are always complaining that our days are few and acting as though there would be no end to them."

Some men live, others exist; to live with twice the

significance is worth as much or more to the world than living twice as long. Some of the greatest lives in history have been short in years. A modern educator has well said that to spend two hours on a lesson means nothing-the important matter is, "How much intelligent, concentrated energy did you spend upon it?" Men vary from each other in their length of days, but they also differ immensely with respect to intensity of living; and the latter, in its effect upon the world, is probably far more important, in regard to worth-while progress and achievement, than the former. A real man would rather live a year than vegetate for a century.

Each man born into the world has peculiar individualistic faculties; they are his initial capital, and with these he must do business in life. The river of time flows steadily but inexorably by, whether we work or are idle, see or are blind, struggle to achieve or with indolence fall into lethargy, or degenerate into hopeless despair. "It is only while the water of the river of time flows over the mill-wheel of today's life that we can utilize it. Once it is past, it is in the great unreturning sea of eternity." Each day, each hour, presents opportunity, great or small, for the use of our individualistic capital, for its growth, and for the development of one's power, talents and character. Goethe has well said, "Do not wait for extraordinary opportunities for good actions, but make use of common situations. A long continued walk is better than a short flight." And Gladstone said, "Thrift of time will repay you in after life with a usury of profits beyond your most optimistic dreams; while the waste of it will