The limited express that spans the distance between New York and
Chicago in twenty-four hours accomplishes the feat not so much
by increasing the speed as by reducing the delays. In the main
the train does not travel much faster than the other trains that
take a third more time do at their maximum; but it makes fewer
stops, it attends more strictly to its through business. Chicago
is its objective point.
It is much so on the railroad of life. How young we would all be
at sixty--ay, at eighty--if we would avoid the petty, useless, the
unnecessary delays, the unprofitable business at the side-stations
along the road. (Text.)--VYRNWY MORGAN, “The Cambro-American
Pulpit.”
(725)
* * * * *
A newspaper item has the following:
At an annual dinner of the Architectural League of New York the
venerable artist, John La Farge--who certainly belongs among
the first half-score of painters that America has produced--was
presented with a medal of honor.
Then a singular thing happened.
Mr. La Farge got upon his feet and, in a gentle tone of
expostulation, protested that the honors now offered him were a
little empty--and very much belated.
He said he had “only three or four more years left to work in,”
and that through all the years of his vigorous manhood the great
city of New York, with all its vast enterprise of building, had
offered little opportunity to his hand.
The kind word should be spoken to the friend and not engraved on his
tombstone. The work that is thought of should be performed in the day
of opportunity, for it may be so belated as to lose much of its meaning.
(726)
=Delay, Expensive=--See NATURALIZATION.
=Delay in Religious Instruction=--See RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION.