*Hardly less grave,* though less common, *is the error of those who anticipate duty*, and do to-day what they ought to do to-morrow. The work thus anticipated may be superseded, or may be performed under better auspices and with fewer hindrances in its own time; while it can hardly fail to interfere injuriously with the fit employment or due relaxation of the passing day. Moreover, the habit of thus performing work before its time at once betokens and intensifies an uneasy, self-distrusting frame of mind, unfavorable to vigorous effort, and still more so to the quiet enjoyment of needed rest and recreation. There are those, who are perpetually haunted by the forecast shadows, not only of fixed, but of contingent obligations and duties,—shadows generally larger than the substance, and often wholly destitute of substance. *Punctuality*(17) denotes the most scrupulous precision as to time,—exactness to a moment in the observance of all times that can be designated or agreed upon. In matters with which we alone are concerned, we undoubtedly have of right, and may often very fittingly exercise, the dispensing power. Thus, in the arrangement of our own pursuits, the clock may measure and direct our industry, without binding us by its stroke. It is often of more consequence that we finish what is almost done, than that we change our work because the usual hour for a change has arrived. But where others are concerned, rigid punctuality is an imperative duty. A fixed time for an assembly, a meeting of a committee or board of trust, or a business interview, is a virtual contract into which each person concerned has entered with every other, and the strict rules that apply to contracts of all kinds are applicable here. Failure in punctuality is dishonesty. It involves the theft of time, which to some men is money’s worth, to others is worth more than money. It ought not to surprise us if one wantonly or habitually negligent in this matter should prove himself oblivious of other and even more imperative obligations; for the dullness of conscience and the obscure sense of right, indicated by the frequent breach of virtual contracts as to time, betoken a character too feeble to maintain its integrity against any strong temptation. Section II. Place. The trite maxim, *A place for everything, and everything in its place*, so commends itself to the sense of fitness, as hardly to need exposition or enforcement; yet while no maxim is more generally admitted, scarce any is so frequently violated in practice. In duty, the elements of time and place are intimately blended. Disorder in place generates derangement in time. The object which is out of place can be found only by the waste of time; and the most faithful industry loses a large part of its value when its materials are wanting where they ought to be, and must be sought where they ought not to be.