How to Estimate the Value of Time. 297 now first sees the light twenty years I would be useful; but generally, as after his death. in his case, the effect alone of the whole is retained, rather than any exact recollection of them. He felt his chief difficulty in writing the essay to be, the tendency to make his treatise a lecture on general morals. He however proposes to treat his subject not so much philosophically as morally and practically. This should be distinctly borne in mind. The dissenting public have reason to congratulate themselves on its appearance. We have not so many eminent names in literature that we can afford to let one die. Whatever defects the author of this treatise might have, he earned for himself a place among the writers of his day as John Foster, the Essayist; and the publication of this posthumous work will do something to recall attention to one who was as distinguished for his originality as he was for his conscientiousness. In our judgment it will rather extend than lessen his fame. Bearing throughout traces of that earlier manner which it is to be regretted he ever renounced, it contains also many passages equal to any to be found in his later productions. Its appeals to the conscience are neither rhapsodical nor untimely, and cannot fail to touch to the quick those who give them a careful examination. The Baptist body, and indeed the Christian public generally, are greatly endebted to the publishers for exhuming this treatise from its almost forgotten sepulchre; and the readers of this volume will find themselves largely under obligation to the Editor for the admirable manner in which he has executed the work entrusted to him. The essay begins by touching upon some of those reasons which Foster thinks have hitherto prevented any one from undertaking a formal treatise on the improvement of time. This has arisen partly from the facility and necessity of introducing it as a relative topic in aid of almost all other subjects of instructive writing. Writers have been sensible of having too liberally expended the materials belonging to the subject, among the diversity of their moral arguments, to leave enough for a separate consideration of it. Many passages bearing upon the topic may be found scattered through the writings of others, and a compilation of them Foster thinks mere The first part is divided into four chapters, which take up successively the value, the capacity and swiftness of time, and the ultimate object of its improvement. Its value may be estimated by what is actually accomplished in a given portion of it, say in the space of a single hour, or a single day. In opening up this thought, he says: "The Omnipresent Spirit perceives all but an infinite number of actions taking place together throughout the different regions of His empire. And by the end of the hour which has just now begun a greater number of operations will have been performed, which at this moment have not been performed, than the collective sum of all that has been done in this world since its creation. The hour just now begun may be exactly the period for finishing some great plan, or concluding some great dispensation which thousands of years or ages have been advancing to its accomplishment. This may be the very hour in which a new world shall originate or an ancient one sink in ruins. At this hour, such changes and phenomena may be displayed in some part of the universe as were never presented to the astonishment of the most ancient created minds. At this very hour, the inhabitants of some remote orb may be roused by signs analogous to those which we anticipate to precede the final judgment, and in order to prepare them for such an event. This hour may somewhere begin or conclude mightier contests than Milton was able to imagine, and contests producing more stupendous results; contests in comparison with which those which shake Europe at this same time are more diminutive than those of the meanest insects. At this very hour, thousands of amazing enterprises may be undertaken, and by the end of a progress made, which to us would have seemed to require ages. At this hour, wise intelligences may terminate long and patient pursuits of knowledge in such discoveries as shall give a new science to their race. At this hour, a whole race of improved and virtuous beings may be elevated to a higher station in the great system of beings. At this hour, some new mode of divine operation, some new law of nature, which was not required before, may be introduced into the first trial of its action. At this hour, the most strange suspension of regular laws may take place at the will of Him that appointed them, for the sake of commanding a solemn attention, and confirming some Divine communication by miracles. At this hour, the inhabitants of the creation are most certainly performing more actions than any faculty of mind less than infinite can observe or remember. All this, and incomparably more than all this, a philosopher and a Christian would delight to imagine. And all that he can imagine in the widest stretch of thought is as nothing in comparison with what most certainly takes place in so vast a universe every hour, and will take place this very hour in which these faint conjectures are indulged.' In the midst of such a wide sweep as this we might be inclined to say, the whole sum of operations will be neither more nor less, our insignificant efforts being added or withheld. It is, however, necessary that we retain a strong sense of our individual duty, and of the importance of our own actions as to our own interests. The value of time may also be estimated by considering the very great importance felt to be connected with small portions of it in cases of great emergency. The objections against such a view are then met, and the author passes on to the discussion of the capacity of time. 'I use this term,' says Foster, to suggest the possible number of successive operations of an individual within a given period, or within the scope of a life of moderate length.' He contends that there is a sense in which time is of equal capacity to all men. Napoleon Bonaparte is quoted as an example of vigour and continuous effort, and Magliabecchi, Calmet, Tostatus, D'Anville, Richard Baxter, Sir William Jones, and King Alfred, are referred to as illustrations of the work which may be crushed into a single life. In his chapter on the swiftness of time Foster chiefly confines himself to illustrations. Among these he points to rays of light, meteors, the course of clouds, a stream of water, the human pulse, in each of which motion is the distinguishing circumstance; and to others of which this cannot be predicated, as the changes of seasons, the appearance of persons from infancy to manhood and old age, and the feelings awakened by the close and the beginning of the year. There are many beautiful passages found here that will bear comparison with anything Foster has written. By far the largest chapter is the one devoted to the discussion of the ultimate object of the improvement of time. It is also the most important. He has cleared the ground before him, and now proceeds to strike home to the conscience. He has shown what is done, what can be done, and how we may, like Jacob, 'Hold the fleet angel fast until he bless us,' Now arises the question, for what shall his activities be employed? Surely for nothing less than the great future. If man's existence terminate at death, then all that has been advocated is, he contends, insufficient to awaken those exertions which have been set forth Picture of a Man satisfied with doing Nothing. The second part of the treatise contains thoughts on indolence, on intervals of time, and solitary life. The various forms of indolence enumerated are Fosteresque: as for instance, the reluctance of delay shewn to make the first effort, and then the slowness of performance, or readiness to intermit the work; the satisfaction of doing absolutely nothing; excess of sleep, which may be called a pernicious enchantment; the listlessness called ennui or tædium vita; and the indolence common to a solitary life. Here is a by no means faltering 299 He as the noblest improvement of time. | or followed by the trifling chat of It is unreasonable to require extra- some relation or neighbour that calls ordinary efforts of virtue. Fame is on him. The newspaper agreeably not a sufficient motive-nor yet the occupies him a considerable time; pleasure of enlightening and benefit- and he preserves the same equiliing mankind. There is no adequate brium of tranquil stupidity through reason-but the belief in a future lottery schemes, variation of stocks, life. This is then discussed and elopements to Gretna Green, trials enforced in a way which has upon it for murder, and battles on the Conat every step the impress of Foster's tinent. A sea-fight, perhaps, comes own peculiar mind. It is worthy of nearer his sensorium than anythe closest attention. thing else, and he is lighted up to a degree of animation as he reads of broadsides and falling masts, and boarding and carnage, and striking of colours, and blowing up. challenges all the world to beat Old England; and as a mirror of patriotic faith, is never tired of repeating what he deems the sapient remark, that the enemy will never show him. self here so long as we have such a fleet. But even this elation is transient and his mind soon quietly recedes from all this bustle, as a tub, or a piece of timber, or a dead body floats away from one of these ships in this scene of tumult. his house is in a town, he will often sit near the window to see who and what passes in the street. And as he has probably made more enquiries about the people in the neighbourhood and their business than he would have had any leisure to do if he had any business of his own, there are plenty of subjects of conversation with those who are with him in the house, supplied by the sight of the variety of the people that he knows as they pass along. If he lives in the country, one shall see him on a fine day sitting on a bench near the door, just in order PICTURE OF A MAN SATISFIED WITH DOING NOTHING. 'It is easy to picture to ourselves a man whose competence of property exempts him from any necessity of exertion for that subsistence which compels the industry of the greatest part of mankind. We imagine this man sitting in vacant tranquility for hours together, with a countenance that gives one the same kind of idea as the surface of a muddy stagnant pond. He places himself perhaps near the fire, which he occasionally amuses himself by stirring. Here, in good-humoured inanity, he sometimes remains a long time without even any semblance of occupation, and almost without moving hand or foot. He just notices what is going on in the house, yawns occasionally, and asks some question about dinner. The lazy neutrality of his sensations is perhaps a little stimulated by his pipe, accompanied If to take the fresh air,' observe what is passing on the road at a little distance, and notice the rural business of the farms that lie in the vale within his view. He will not choose to have much ground himself, there is so much trouble required to manage it, and so much vexation with workmen. But the few fields which he likes to keep in his hands furnish a pleasant little circuit for sauntering round. He will now and then pretend to work a little in his garden, to the diversion | buried; for he is just as good a man of the regular labourers, but will under the ground as he was above it."" oftener content himself with re- What is said of excessive sleep is marking that it is a pleasant kind a little exaggerated. Foster conof work, and will walk about at his tends that six hours is long enough ease, computing the produce of his for most men; and he is right, if garden, his fields, and his orchard. those men be chiefly occupied in I might have assigned to him a little manual labour. It will hardly be more of something like mental ex- deemed enough by those whose istence, and still left him profoundly brain is wearied by excessive and indolent, but this would have brought persistent toil. Nor does it appear him into rather a different class of practical to live by rule in the way idlers, who may deserve their dis- adopted by Foster's hero, Alfred the tinct share of our notice. Now who Great. The necessities of professional is not tempted to reproach the sun life demand the constant alteration for shining on such a piece of moving matter, such a mockery of a rational nature; a thing that can see seasons hastening away, all nature in activity, the moral world in a state of revolution, eminently good and bad men | equally prosecuting their designs with an ardour that deplores the necessity of repasts and sleep, the termination of life rapidly approaching, and boundless prospects opening beyond, and preserve, amidst all, as perfect an indifference about time, and improvement, and progressive virtue, and preparation for futurity, as if no such concerns had ever been heard of on the globe? And yet this loathsome and despicable thing has the most entire good opinion of itself, and is not ashamed to show its self-complacent front in any place or company where indolence does not forbid it to go. One has occasionally seen it when apparently listening to the dictates of inspiration, or to narratives and descriptions relating to examples of such transcendent activity of excellence, that even persons who greatly surpass the general habits of mankind in the improvement of time, have been greatly mortified in placing themselves in comparison, while it has felt no discomposure of its invulnerable satisfaction. When he has consumed his allotted quantity of corn, and spent all the years, which have been spent with much more dignity by a toad in the midst of a block of stone, his epitaph might properly be-" Here lies a person who has lost nothing by being of plans and projects. It is only by snatches that men can keep up their reading, except indeed they adopt Luther's plan, and barricade themselves in their studies, far enough away from the approach of intruders not to be disturbed even by their knocking. But it would be unjust to the essayist not to admit that his remarks are intended chiefly for those who have their time very much at their disposal; and that others have tried the filling up of odd moments in the way he suggests and have thus secured substantial and enduring results. There is, however, a bookishness about the remarks generally which are admirably suited to students, but which would be simply ridiculous in actual every-day life. Cobbett recommends something like Foster's plan in his French Grammar when describing the method by which the genders of nouns may be acquired and firmly enstamped upon the memory; but to be consistent with some portions of Foster's plan one would need pockets made for octavos as well as duodecimos, and would be often groaning, in days such as the last month brought us, under a load that would quite incapacitate us for studious application to any one of our pocket treasures. It is not given to every man to possess a Spencerian, or Fosterian library, much less to drag parts of it about with him everywhere. We are also inclined to think that too sombre a view is taken of human duty, and that the system by which it is thought this duty may be best do the work of two years in one; discharged smacks rather too much but for how many years will you do of the cloister. Life is unspeakably it in succession? You may fag precious, and in one sense is a your servants by perpetual labour season of emergency;' but is it in- for several successive seasons, but tended that the whole of it should how many can bear witness in be given to grave and laborious broken health to its disasterous work? Is relaxation only to be effects? Overwork, whether of mind taken at rare intervals and in very or body, brings premature decay. limited quantities? Is every man Not that we would advocate listlessto fill up his spare moments as if he ness. Work hard, say we; as hard were cramming for an examination? as you can, while you are at it. Is no time to be left for pleasant But if you are a student, don't saunter without its being denounced think your time is wasted because as the most unqualified guilt?' you are not staining your fingers Are we never to indulge in the with perpetual ink, and your eye is simplest pleasures, such as listen- not ceaselessly following the line of ing to the carol of birds, or gazing type that appears well nigh interupward at the ever shifting drapery minable. If you are a man of of cloud, or watching the play of business, for your own sake, for light and shadow on the green fields your families,' and your friends' or golden corn, or stooping over the sakes, do have some spare hour in sylph-like flowers with their ten the day when your talk is not of thousand dyes-without the ever- crops and bullocks, of markets and lasting pencil and pocket-book to stocks, of the unsteadiness' of help us in catalogueing their several cotton, and the 'quietness' of tea; attractions? Are our very holidays do allow some interval when those to be as sad as our funerals? Shall in your employ shall have some we never step aside even into a cessation from their daily toil. desert place to rest awhile without robbing our temporary solitude of its chief advantage by taking our business or our professional cares along with us? In truth to us no opinions seem more unfitted to Englishmen of the present day than these. With the numberless instances supplied by the scantiest observation of the fatal consequences of overwork, the great curse of modern England, it would appear wiser in this age to advocate, and jealously to keep, regular seasons of genuine relaxation. By sheer drudgery you may yourself As to the particular work which any man may have to do whose time is his own, he must be the best judge when and how to do it. No universal rule can be given. Nor is it fair to denounce men as idle whose method of work differs from your own. We are therefore quite prepared to endorse the opinion that the true test of the employment of a man's time is, what he does effect, no matter how; and that it is quite a different question what he might have affected, if his character had been totally different from what it is.' Obituary. HENRY SLEATH.-Though the 'record of the saints is on high,' we are not forbidden to cherish and preserve the remembrance of them on earth; and to many of the readers of this Magazine not the least interesting portion of it is, that which contains memorials of the pious dead. Amongst this number may now be reckoned Henry Sleath, who died at Rothley, Leicestershire, February 9th, 1863, in the ninety-first year of his age, after honourably maintaining |