XXXII.
KEEPING ONE’S ENGAGEMENTS.
What would happen if everybody should begin to-morrow to keep all his promises and fulfill all his engagements? I think it would make a new world at once. There is great need that the attention of young people should be called to the importance of keeping engagements. Much of the confusion and annoyance and trouble of this world would be done away with if people would learn to keep their promises. The oft-repeated excuse, “I forgot,” is not reasonable. If the memory is in the habit of playing tricks with you, then you ought to make notes of your engagements, write them down in some way, so that you will not forget them. Arnold of Rugby said: “Thoughtlessness is a crime,” and he was right. The great Ruskin has also uttered strong words in condemnation of thoughtlessness in youth. He said: “But what excuse can you find for willfulness of thought at the very time when every crisis of future fortune hangs on your decisions? A youth thoughtless! when the career of all his days depends on the opportunity of a moment. A youth thoughtless! when his every act is a foundation-stone of future conduct, and every imagination a fountain of life or death. Be thoughtless in any after years rather than now, though, indeed, there is only one place where a man may be nobly thoughtless—his deathbed. No thinking should ever be left to be done there.”
Keeping One’s Engagements.
And, then, boys and girls should remember that promptness should always accompany the fulfilling of an engagement, otherwise the engagement is not really kept. A person’s time is a valuable possession, which should be respected by all. Who has not been exasperated by some one with apparent indifference keeping (?) an engagement a half or three-quarters of an hour late! And often a whole train of troubles will follow in the wake of tardiness. The punctual boy or girl in this life is the one who advances most rapidly. The punctual boy or girl will make a punctual man or woman. A promise-breaker, or one who is late in keeping his appointments, cannot in the true sense of the term be considered a first-class person.