CHAPTER XIV.
"ON TIME," OR THE TRIUMPH OF PROMPTNESS "On the great clock of time there is but one word--NOW." Note the sublime precision that leads the earth over a circuit of five hundred millions of miles back to the solstice at the appointed moment without the loss of one second,--no, not the millionth part of a second,--for ages and ages of which it traveled that imperiled road .-- EDWARD EVERETT.
"Who cannot but see oftentimes how strange the threads of our destiny run?
Oft it is only for a moment the favorable instant is presented.
We miss it, and months and years are lost." By the street of by and by one arrives at the house of never .-- CERVANTES.
"Lose this day by loitering--'t will be the same story tomorrow, and the next more dilatory." Let's take the instant by the forward top .-- SHAKESPEARE.
"Haste, post, haste! Haste for thy life!" was frequently written upon messages in the days of Henry VIII of England, with a picture of a courier swinging from a gibbet.

Post-offices were unknown, and letters were carried by government messengers subject to hanging if they delayed upon the road.
Even in the old, slow days of stage-coaches, when it took a month of dangerous traveling to accomplish the distance we can now span in a few hours, unnecessary delay was a crime.

One of the greatest gains civilization has made is in measuring and utilizing time.

We can do as much in an hour to-day as they could in twenty hours a hundred years ago.
"Delays have dangerous ends." Caesar's delay to read a message cost him his life when he reached the senate house.

Colonel Rahl, the Hessian commander at Trenton, was playing cards when a messenger brought a letter stating that Washington was crossing the Delaware.