The devil was both green and red with jealously and furry. In spite of all his efforts to the contrary, men were making progress. It was a veritable crisis and it was intolerable. What to do now? He convened a council of war.

 ‘Send me, said one, ‘I will tell them there is no God,’ ‘Rubbish,’ retorted the chief. “They know there is .’ ‘Send me,’ said another getting to his feet timidly, i’ll tell them there is no hell”.

  ‘Fiddlesticks!’ hooted the demon prince. ‘Even if they believed you, they would still hope for heaven.’ It was some minutes before a third one ventured an idea, ‘Send me, ‘  I will tell them there is no hurry.”

  Well, this was an idea! The third demon was patted on the back and looked upon with envy by all, the chief included. He was sent out into the world and has labored with great success over since.

   Set earnestly at the task in hand. Lost time is never found again. Isn’t it a rousing thought that every moment that is counted off has gone forever, never to be ours again?

   A forester was visiting a forest that had been devastated by fire: “We must replant cedars’. ‘You can’t mean that: they take two thousand years to grow to their full height!’ “Two thousand years? In that case, my friend, there’s not a minute to lose. You must get on with it right away. Seneca, the Roman philosopher, remarked: ‘If we do not watch, we lose our opportunities; if we do not make haste, we are left behind; our best hours escape and our worst hours come. The pure part of our life runs first, and leaves only the dregs at the bottom, and that time which is good for nothing else we dedicate ourselves to virtue, and only propose to begin to live at an age that very few people arrive at.’

    A philosopher gives a sane advice when he says: ‘ Do not defer till the evening what the morning may accomplish; for idleness is the parent of want.

    ‘Do not let your days pass a way like the shadow of a cloud which leaves behind no trace for remembrance.’

     ‘Do not let your body become diseased for want of exercise, lest should you wish for action you have no power to move.’

    ‘When you see with your eyes, and when you hear with your ears, do not sit still with no resolution shaking your head, and wishing, lest ruin come upon you like a whirlwind.’