the puny force of some cause, about as powerful, you would have supposed, as a spider, may capture the hapless boaster the very next moment, and triumphantly show the futility of the determinations by which he was to have proved the independence of his understanding and his will. He belongs to whatever can seize him; and innumerable things do actually verify their claim on him, and arrest him as he tries to go along; as twigs and chips, floating near the edge of a river, are intercepted by every weed, and whirled in every little eddy. Having concluded on a design, he may pledge himself to accomplish it, if the five hundred diversities of feeling which may come within the week, will let him. As his character precludes all foresight of his conduct, he may sit and wonder what form and direc tion his views and actions are destined to take to-morrow; as a farmer waits the uncertain changes of the clouds to decide what he shall do.

"This man's opinions and determinations always depend very much on other human beings; and what chance for consistency and stability, while the persons with whom he may converse, or transact, are so various ? This very evening he may talk with a man whose sentiments will melt away the present form and outline of his purposes, however firm and defined he may have fancied them to be. A succession of persons whose faculties were stronger than his own, might, in spite of his irresolute re-action, take him and dispose of him as they pleased. An infirm character practically confesses itself made for subjection, and passes like a slave from owner to owner."

How is such a man to make his way through the world? It is a favourite saying, that "we are the creatures of cir

cumstances," and doubtless there is much truth in it. Cromwell born in this nineteenth century had lived and died a plain country farmer. Columbus perchance a studious mathematician, rather than a bold mariner. Napoleon, if he had been the subject of England, instead of France, might at most have figured as one among hundreds of her able military men. Sir Walter Scott in an earlier age had been well content to be a leader in the nameless raids and forays of the Scottish borders; and Luther, a century earlier or later, might have died an unknown monk, or an obscure parish priest. Let us only suppose the whole of the mighty dead living in our own day, surrounded by the circumstances that environ us, and how different would the whole course of existence of each have been. Yet no circumstances could ever have made these men their slaves. Napoleon, in the little island of Elba, or even in the remote prison-rock amid the melancholy main, was still the same indomitable man who had made Europe bend to his will; and Columbus, when he stopped at the convent gate to solicit its charitable gift of bread and water for his child, was the same resolved and enthusiastic being as when, amid the wide waste of the Atlantic, he subdued the adverse wills of a whole mutinous ship's crew to his own. We must indeed be controlled by circumstances, but the man of method and punctuality alone has these under his command; like the well-skilled rider who guides his high mettled steed, and by its means accomplishes a long day's journey, while the unpractised man who ventures on its back, if he can succeed in keeping his seat, is led hither and thither, aimlessly at its will. “It is inevitable," says Foster, "that the regulation of every man's

plan must greatly depend on the course of events, which come in an order not to be foreseen or prevented. But even in accommodating the plans of conduct to the train of events, the difference between two men may be no less than that in the one instance the man is subservient to the events, and in the other the events are made subservient to the man. Some men seem to have been taken along by a succession of events, and, as it were, handed forward in quiet passiveness from one to another, without any determined principle in their own characters, by which they could constrain those events to serve a design formed antecedently to them, or apparently in defiance of them. The events seized them as a neutral material, not they the events. Others, advancing through life with an internal invincible determination of mind, have seemed to make the train of circumstances, whatever they were, conduce as much to their chief design as if they had taken place on purpose. It is wonderful, how even the apparent casualties of life seem to bow to a spirit that will not bow to them, and yield to assist a design, after having in vain attempted to frustrate it."

One great advantage which results to the orderly man from his punctual habits of method, is, that his energies are never wasted or frittered away. He husbands his strength till the appointed time; calmly meets the difficulty, or the laborious task, at the moment fixed upon as the fittest for coping with its obstacles, and resolutely applying his well-arranged powers, the thing which to the disorderly, hurried, and undecided man would appear an altogether insurmountable difficulty, yields before him like water to the vessel's prow. Look at the ship, becalmed

and without a pilot, with sluggish sails flapping against the mast, swayed alternately by wind and tide, ever in motion, and yet never nearer its destined port. Just such is the irresolute man. Every breeze that blows makes him its sport, and every turn of the tide of fortune finds him dragging helplessly along in its current. But see the same ship with all its sails bent, a prosperous wind urging it on, the pilot at the helm, the seamen ready, each at his appointed post of duty, and the rude ocean yields to its prow, and flings up its spray unheeded and harmless on its sides. No better picture could be conceived of the man of order, method, and punctual decision. The wind changes -in a moment all hands are ready, the ship is brought about, the sails are set anew, and moving on a different tack, but with the same port in view, the gallant ship dashes onward in its course.

means.

Punctuality with regard to money matters is another form in which the well-ordered method of a business man proves one of the readiest sources of comfort and prosperity. Punctuality in payment may be said to double our The man of disorderly habits, with no proper account of income or expenditure, and no just estimate of the relative proportion of his means and his obligations, is perpetually exposed to the annoyance and vexation of having demands made on him, not so much beyond his means, as disproportioned to the chance provisions of the moment. He may be compared to a general, who, neglecting the discipline of his forces, may be surprised at any moment by the attack of the most insignificant foe, not because his numbers are insufficient, but because they are not at hand. The skilful commander, with but half the

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number, well disciplined, and ever ready at a moment's notice, is equal to almost any emergency. The homely proverbs of Franklin, the fruits of his own experience, abound in maxims relating to this indispensable virtue. Punctuality, with regard to time and money, is one of those good old fashioned virtues which Franklin delighted to honour. Poor Richard's aphorisms have been quoted and requoted, till they are not only as familiar as household words-they are actually such. «Time is money”— "Creditors have better memories than debtors," and other similar pithy proverbs; who thinks of referring them to Franklin? They come so home to "men's business and bosoms," that with one consent they have adopted them as their own.

Creditors certainly have more pleasant memories than debtors, but according to the philosophical principle, that we inevitably remember what we strive to forget, debts must cling very tenaciously to the memory.

"Sell to a man who is punctual in his payments, at a less profit than to him who is not. One shilling sure, is better than two in expectation, and will avail you more in an emergency. The way to get credit is to be punctual-the way to preserve credit is not to abuse it. Settle often; have short accounts;-they are truly said to make long friends." Such are some of the wholesome advices of the homely moralist, which the reader will do well to lay to heart, for they contain not a little practical wisdom. It is a wise maxim in every concern of life, never to put off till to-morrow what can be done to-day; but in nothing will its value be more directly found than in all money payments. According to the system of credit and