Economizing Time | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 9, 1872

Economizing Time.

TO SAVE time is a duty. This all will allow. On the one hand, it is a Christian maxim “Redeeming the time;” and on the other, it is one of the few Christian maxims which the most worldly will approve. The true idea of economizing time is to turn it all to good account; so that when we take ourselves to task for the hours of the day, we will say that, having devoted so many to the necessary offices of the body, so many to the duties of our calling, such and such to reading and meditation, to recreation and amusement, we have spent our time to advantage. If this standard commend itself, then “let the dead past bury its dead,” so far as lost time is concerned, or so far as we have been spending our days on a wrong plan, and let us devote ourselves to the special duty of the moment, as it rises before us in a wisely ordered life.

We fear, however, that this is not the common notion of saving time. You meet a business friend on one of these hot, dusty days, rushing along the street as if the whole block were on fire, and it depended on him to put it out. You cry out, “Halloo, Brother S——; what’s all the hurry?” He replies, “Can’t stop just now. I’m in a dreadful hurry; save time’s the word.” Or, you go into a restaurant, and just as dinner is being placed before you, in comes your particular companion, Harry, whom of all men at that moment you want to see. “Come along, Harry, and have some dinner with me,” you gladly say. Harry looks at his watch, and says he is sorry he has no time; and then, standing at a long counter, he bolts, in the twinkling of an eye, as much food as would serve a leisurely man for two or three meals. Or, you have just got a comfortable seat in the railway car. There is every sign of starting immediately. The engine is blowing her steam. The conductor has got on board. The last shrill whistle is heard, and the cars are in motion. Looking out, you see a man rushing along at as high pressure speed as a locomotive, puffing and blowing. With an effort, he springs on the step. Some one takes him by the hand, and helps him up to the platform; and during the rest of the journey he is pale and shivering.

The other day we observed an illustration of the same thing. As we arrived at the Astor House, we observed a kind-looking man kissing his wife and children. He said to the children, “You’ll be all in bed by the time business is over and I get back to our home.” Though early in the morning, he had evidently brought his family with him to give them the air, and because his time was so precious that he could not spend any of it at home during the hours of the day.

Well, is this economizing time? We say it is borrowing time that we cannot pay back. In other words, this is stealing time. The man who has not a moment for anything but business is taking time from some duty to which of right it belongs. The man who does his eating in five minutes, when he should spend half an hour at least, is robbing health of its proper time. He who rushes to the railway station, and then drops down almost dead, has stolen time from his heart and lungs. And what a number of men who are actually robbing their families of time! They see nothing of their children during the entire day, unless they resort to some such method as that described, of making them accompany them so far on their way. When they get home at night, their children are sound asleep in bed. They are too tired to say anything to their partners in life. And so it is, day after day, till Sunday comes round, and then they aggravate the evil by stealing time from Sunday’s duties. The hours of the one day in seven are regarded as a balance in the bank of life, on which they may safely draw and make up for the losses of the week.

Alas! how many are compelled thus to economize time! They are the victims of circumstances. They must work, or else die. The cries of hungry and naked children are ever ringing in their ears. Their wages will hardly keep their own body and soul together, let alone those of their wives and children. They have to borrow time from sleep. For them there is no day of recreation. They have even to rob Sunday of its precious hours to spend them in labor, and ere long they die, miserable bankrupts in regard to time.