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← Holy Living and Holy Dying/Book 1 · The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living
Chapter 3HolyLiving.1.3

Rules for employing our Time.

The Morning and Evening Offering

Begin and end each day by centering your thoughts and time upon God.

1. When you wake in the morning, train yourself to think first of God or of something directed toward his service; let him close your eyes at night as well. Keep your sleep to what is necessary and healthy—don't be idle or waste time beyond what nature requires and reasonably allows. And occasionally, take care to watch the preparation the sun makes as it emerges from its chambers in the east.

Diligence in Vocation

Faithfully perform the duties of your calling while sanctifying your rest and holy days.

2. If you have a calling, be diligent in your work, and don't neglect it lightly or without a reasonable cause during the hours that prudent people and careful householders typically set aside for it.1 3. Use every free moment and empty stretch of time for prayer, reading, meditation, the ordinary duties of nature, recreation, charity, friendliness, and neighborliness—whatever serves your spiritual and bodily health. Always remember to work in your calling so that you don't neglect the work of your high calling, but begin and end the day with God, using whatever forms of devotion fit your needs.✦ 4. Christians' rest days and the festivals of the church must in no sense be days of idleness; for it's better to plow on holy days than to do nothing, or to do evil. But let them be spent in the work proper to the day—that is, religion and charity—according to the rules appointed. See chapter 4. section 6.

Guarding the Heart and Company

Protect your time by choosing wise companions and remembering the eternal purpose of your life.

5. Avoid the company of drunkards and busybodies, and of everyone who tends to talk a great deal to little purpose; for no one can be careful with their time who isn't prudent in choosing their company; and if one of the speakers is vain, tedious, and trivial, both the one who listens and the one who answers in the conversation lose their time equally. 6. Never talk with anyone or take up any trivial task just to pass the time. — St. Bernard,2 On the Threefold Guard.3 For every day well spent can become a “day of salvation,” and time used rightly is an “acceptable time.”✦✦ And remember that the time you waste was given to you to repent, to pray for the pardon of sins, to work out your salvation, to do the work of grace, and to lay up a treasure of good works for the day of judgment, so that your time may be crowned with eternity.✦

Prayer Amidst Daily Labor

Integrate short, heartfelt prayers into your work to sanctify your daily tasks.

7. In the midst of the works of your calling, often withdraw to God. Augustus Caesar is praised in Lucan: even in the midst of battles he always made time for the stars and the regions of heaven, and for the powers above. — 186. in short prayers and brief outbursts of prayer; and those can make up for the larger stretches of time you may wish you had for devotion, and in which you think other people have an advantage over you. For in this way you reconcile outward work and your inward calling, the church and the commonwealth, the employment of the body and the interest of your soul. Be sure of this: God is present at your breathings and heartfelt sighings of prayer as readily as at the longer offices of people who are less busy; and your time is as truly sanctified by a trade, and by devout though short prayers, as by the longer offices of those whose time is not filled with labor and useful business. 8. Make sure your work is suitable for a reasonable person—not tasks fit for children or scatterbrained people, but work appropriate for your age and understanding.4 For a person can be very idly busy, and take great pains to so little purpose that, in all that labor and spent time, they serve no end but folly and vanity. There are some trades that serve only the ends of idle people and fools—trades that deserve to be seized by the severity of the laws and banished from under the sun; and there are some people who keep busy, but it is as Domitian was, in catching flies.5 9. Make sure your work suits who you are and your calling.6 Some people spend their time on affairs far beneath the dignity of their station. Even though they’ve been called by God or the state to help carry great burdens and judge a people, they weaken their understanding and disable themselves with sordid, brutish business. So Nero went up and down Greece and challenged the fiddlers at their own craft. Eropus, a Macedonian king, made lanterns. Harcatius, the king of Parthia, was a mole-catcher, and Biantes the Lydian filed needles. Anyone appointed to minister in holy things must not let secular affairs and sordid trades eat up large parts of his work: a clergyman must not keep a tavern, nor a judge be an innkeeper; and it was a great waste of time in Theophylact, the patriarch of C.7 P.8 spending his time in the horse stables when he should have been in his study, in the pulpit, or saying his holy offices. Such occupations are the diseases of labor, and the rust that time collects—not by lying still, but by dirty employment.9

Stewardship According to Station

Tailor your use of time to your specific state of life, avoiding vanity and unnecessary indulgence.

10. Let your work be the kind that suits a Christian—that is, not mixed with sin in any way. For anyone who works hard to serve greed, or caters to another person's lust, or keeps a shop of impurity or excess, is idle in the worst sense; for every hour spent that way only moves him backward, and it has to be spent again—and spent better—in the remaining, shorter part of his life. 11. People of high rank who have no trade or profession need to be especially careful and deliberate about how they spend their time.10 They're miserable if their education has been so loose and undisciplined that it left them without skill to use their time well; but they're most miserable if that poor training and lack of skill make them fall into vicious, lower company and push their hours along through the grim minutes and stretches of sin and death. Those who are educated know the value of time and how to make good use of a day, and they should prepare themselves for roles where they can be most useful—whether in the arts, military service, public counsel, or government. For those who are unlearned, let them choose good company: people who won't tempt them into vice or join them in it, but who can supply what they lack through advice, conversation, guidance, and fellowship.11 Let them learn simple, age-appropriate things; read history and the laws of the land; and learn the customs of their country, the condition of their own estate, and charitable ways of managing it. Let them carefully study how to govern their families, learn the burdens of their tenants and the needs of their neighbors, and in due measure provide for them; let them reconcile quarrels and prevent lawsuits, or end them quickly. In this abundance of leisure, let them set apart larger portions of their time for religion and the needs of their souls.12 12. Women of noble birth and great wealth should do the same things according to their station and abilities: care for their children, look after household affairs, visit the homes of the poor to relieve their needs, be courteous to their neighbors, learn quietly from their husbands or spiritual guides, read good books, pray often, speak little, and “learn to do good works for necessary uses”—for by that phrase St.✦13 Paul expresses the duty of Christian women to manage their households well and provide charitably for their family and neighborhood. 13. Let people of every station avoid all fussiness and finickiness about clothing or diet, because that kind of softness draws them into wasting a great deal of their time: while they dress and comb away all their chances for morning devotion and half the day's serious discipline, and sleep away the care and provision of their souls.

Avoiding Idle Curiosity

Refrain from prying into the affairs of others and keep recreations brief and restorative.

14. Regardless of your station in life, avoid curiosity and prying into matters that don't concern you. For all busying yourself with things that don't concern us is spending our time to no real good of our own, and therefore not ordered toward a happy eternity. In this reckoning our neighbors' needs are not to be counted among the things that don't concern us: for they do concern us, as one member of the body is concerned in another's grief. But going from house to house as gossips and busybodies—who are the canker and rust of idleness, as idleness is the rust of time—are reproved by the apostle in severe language, and forbidden for the sake of this exercise.14 15. As much as you can, cut out of your life every irrelevant and useless use of your time—unnecessary and frivolous visits; long waits for people of rank, where neither duty, necessity, nor charity obliges you; all empty meetings; all exhausting trifles; and anything that consumes a great deal of time for no real civic, religious, or charitable purpose.15 16. Don't let your recreations be lavish spenders of your time; instead, choose ones that are healthy, short, temporary, truly refreshing, and apt to restore you. But never linger over them or make them your main occupation: for anyone who spends his time on sports and calls it recreation is like a man whose whole garment is made of fringes and whose food is nothing but sauces—they're unhealthy, costly, and useless. And so avoid games that take a great deal of time or long stretches of attention, or that tend to steal your affections from more serious work. For whatever you've given your affections to, you won't begrudge giving your time as well. Natural necessity and the example of St.16 John, who refreshed himself by playing with a tame partridge—Cassian, Bellat.17 24.18 c.19 xxi. Teach us that it's okay to relax and unbend our bow, but not to let it become unready or unstrung.

The Rule of Devotion

Maintain a strict rule of prayer, prioritizing service to God above all earthly demands.

17. Set aside a portion of every day for more solemn devotion and religious practice, and be strict about keeping it. If a variety of work, pressing business, or social obligations crowd your schedule, still arrange your routine so that the essential parts aren't left out. And though legitimate circumstances may make your prayers shorter, let nothing but a sudden, overwhelming, and urgent necessity cause you to skip your morning and evening devotions entirely on any day. If you're forced to make them very short, you can compensate by lengthening them with brief prayers and short moments of withdrawal during the day, right in the middle of your work or your social engagements.20 18. Don't do the work of God negligently—Plutarch, On Curiosity,21 ch. 10. and idly: don't let your heart be on the world when your hand is raised in prayer; and be sure to put a religious act, in its place and proper season, ahead of all worldly pleasure, letting secular things that can of themselves be set aside wait, in these circumstances, on the religious act—not like the patriarch who ran from the altar in St.22 Sophia to his stable, still in full pontifical vestments and right in the middle of the office, to see a colt just born from his beloved and highly prized mare Phorbante.23 Sir Thomas More set a more prudent and strict example: when the king sent for him while he was at public prayer, he replied that he would wait on the king only after he had finished his service to the King of kings. And it did honor to Rusticus. Jerome,24 48.25 10. He refused to open letters from Caesar until the philosopher had finished his lecture. In honoring God and doing his work, put forth all your strength; for you can be most confident that time is truly gained only when it is spent wisely and zealously in God's service.

Redeeming the Time

Redeem your time through hourly prayer, annual retreats, and nightly self-examination, always acting with prudent moderation.

19. When the clock strikes, or however else you measure the day, it's good to say a short prayer every hour so that these recurring moments of devotion become the measure of your time. Do the same during any break in your sleep, so that those stretches free from the world's business may be filled with religion.26 20. If, by doing this, you still haven't secured your time through early and proactive care, then make sure, by timely diligence, to redeem the time—that is, to be devout and religious in those very areas where you once sinned, and to spend your time especially on the graces whose opposites you used to practice, performing acts of chastity and temperance with as much zeal and earnestness as you once practiced your uncleanness; and then, by every means, to watch against your present and future dangers, securing your standing day by day. This is properly to redeem your time: to buy security for it at the cost of any labor and honest acts.✦27 21. Even the busiest person should set aside some solemn time every year,28 — Procopius.29 Vandalic Wars 2.30 during which, for that time setting aside all worldly business, he may give himself wholly to fasting and prayer, and to the tending of his soul by confessions, meditations, and attendance upon God—so that he may settle his accounts, renew his vows, make amends for his carelessness, and draw back again from the place where frivolity and the vanities of the world, or the opportunity of temptations, or the distraction of secular affairs, have carried him.31 22. We'll find this much easier and be greatly helped if, every night before we sleep,32 vii. 5. we examine the actions of the past day with particular scrutiny if anything out of the ordinary has happened—a long conversation, a feast, a great deal of business, mixed company.33 If nothing but the ordinary has happened, a lighter examination will be enough; only take care that we don't go to sleep without such a recollection of the day's actions as can bring to mind anything remarkable and important—whether as matter for sorrow or for thanksgiving. For everything else, a general care is enough. 23. Do all these things wisely and in moderation—not with anxious scruples or fretting. These are helpful tools, but they aren't divine commandments; therefore, you should use them as your personal circumstances make expedient. As long as your duty is secured, you're free to choose for yourself—under the guidance of those appointed to you—both how far to go and what methods to use.34 Happy is the person who can give every hour to sober or pious work. But the duty does not consist in scrupulously counting minutes and half-hours, but in larger stretches of time—provided that no minute is spent in sin, the greater parts of our time are spent in sober work, and all the appointed holy days, and some portion of every day, are set aside for religion. In the smaller portions of time, we are left to our own choices and prudent management, keeping in mind the great degrees and differences of glory laid up in heaven for us, according to the measure of our care, piety, and diligence.✦

Read the original Latin

1. In the morning, when you awake, accustom yourself to think first upon God, or something in order to his service; and at night, also let him close thine eyes: and let your sleep be necessary and healthful, not idle and expensive of time beyond the needs and conveniences of nature; and sometimes be curious to see the preparation which the sun makes, when he is coming forth from his chambers of the east.

2. Let every man that hath a calling be diligent in pursuance of its employment, so as not lightly or without reasonable occasion to neglect it in any of those times which are usually, and by the custom of prudent persons and good husbands, employed in it.

3. Let all the intervals or void spaces of time be employed in prayers, reading, meditating, works of nature, recreation, charity, friendliness and neighbourhood, and means of spiritual and corporal health; ever remembering so to work in our calling, as not to neglect the work of our high calling; but to begin and end the day with God, with such forms of devotion as shall be proper to our necessities.

4. The resting days of Christians, and festivals of the church, must in no sense be days of idleness; for it is better to plough upon holy days than to do nothing, or to do viciously: but let them be spent in the works of the day, that is, of religion and charity, according to the rules appointed. See chap. iv. sect. 6.

5. Avoid the company of drunkards and busybodies, and all such as are apt to talk much to little purpose; for no man can be provident of his time that is not prudent in the choice of his company; and if one of the speakers be vain, tedious, and trifling, he that hears, and he that answers in the discourse, are equal losers of their time.

6. Never talk with any man, or undertake any trifling employment, merely to pass the time away;S. Bern. de Triplici Custodia. for every day well spent may become a “day of salvation,” and time rightly employed is an “acceptable time.” And remember, that the time thou triflest away was given thee to repent in, to pray for pardon of sins, to work out thy salvation, to do the work of grace, to lay up against the day of judgment a treasure of good works, that thy time may be crowned with eternity.

7. In the midst of the works of thy calling, often retire to GodLaudatur Augustus Caesar apud Lucanum, — media inter praelia semper Stellarum coelique plagis, superisque vacabat. — x. 186. in short prayers and ejaculations; and those may make up the want of those larger portions of time, which, it may be, thou desirest for devotion, and in which thou thinkest other persons have advantage of thee; for so thou reconcilest the outward work and thy inward calling, the church and the commonwealth, the employment of the body and the interest of thy soul: for be sure, that God is present at thy breathings and hearty sighings of prayer, as soon as at the longer offices of less busied persons; and thy time is as truly sanctified by a trade, and devout though short prayers, as by the longer offices of those whose time is not filled up with labour and useful business.

8. Let your employment be such as may become a reasonable person; and not be a business fit for children or distracted people, but fit for your age and understanding. For a man may be very idly busy, and take great pains to so little purpose, that, in his labours and expense of time, he shall serve no end but of folly and vanity. There are some trades that wholly serve the ends of idle persons and fools, and such as are fit to be seized upon by the severity of laws and banished from under the sun; and there are some people who are busy; but it is, as Domitian was, in catching flies.

9. Let your employment befitted to your person and calling. Some there are that employ their time in affairs infinitely below the dignity of their person; and being called by God or by the republic to help to bear great burdens, and to judge a people, do enfeeble their understanding and disable their persons by sordid and brutish business. Thus Nero went up and down Greece, and challenged the fiddlers at their trade. Eropus, a Macedonian king, made lanterns. Harcatius, the king of Parthia, was a mole-catcher; and Biantes, the Lydian, filed needles. He that is appointed to minister to holy things must not suffer secular affairs and sordid arts to eat up great portions of his employment: a clergyman must not keep a tavern, nor a judge be an innkeeper; and it was a great idleness in Theophylact, the patriarch of C. P.

to spend his time in the stable of horses, when he should have been in his study, or in the pulpit, or saying his holy offices. Such employments are the diseases of labour, and the rust of time which it contracts, not by lying still, but by dirty employment.

10. Let your employment be such as becomes a Christian; that is, in no sense mingled with sin: for he that takes pains to serve the ends of covetousness, or ministers to another’s lust, or keeps a shop of impurities or intemperance, is idle in the worst sense; for every hour so spent runs him backward, and must be spent again in the remaining and shorter part of his life, and spent better.

11. Persons of great quality, and of no trade, are to be most prudent and curious in their employment and traffic of time. They are miserable if their education hath been so loose and undisciplined as to leave them unfurnished of skill to spend their time: but most miserable are they, if such misgovernment and unskilfulness make them fall into vicious and baser company, and drive on their time by the sad minutes and periods of sin and death. They that are learned know the worth of time, and the manner how well to improve a day; and they are to prepare themselves for such purposes, in which they may be most useful in order to arts or arms, to counsel in public, or government in their country; but for others of them, that are unlearned, let them choose good company, such as may not tempt them to a vice, or join with them in any; but that may supply their defects by counsel and discourse, by way of conduct and conversation. Let them learn easy and youthful things, read history and the laws of the land, learn the customs of their country, the condition of their own estate, profitable and charitable contrivances of it; let them study prudently to govern their families, learn the burdens of their tenants, the necessities of their neighbours, and in their proportion supply them, and reconcile their enmities, and prevent their lawsuits, or quickly end them; and in this glut of leisure and disemployment, let them set apart greater portions of their time for religion and the necessities of their souls.

12. Let the women of noble birth and great fortunes do the same things in their proportions and capacities; nurse their children, look to the affairs of the house, visit poor cottages, and relieve their necessities; be courteous to the neighborhood, learn in silence of their husbands or their spiritual guides, read good books, pray often and speak little, and “learn to do good works for necessary uses;” for by that phrase St. Paul expresses the obligation of Christian women to good housewifery, and charitable provisions for their family and neighbourhood.

13. Let all persons of all conditions avoid all delicacy and niceness in their clothing or diet, because such softness engages them upon great mispendings of their time, while they dress and comb out all their opportunities of their morning devotion, and half the day’s severity, and sleep out the care and provision of their souls.

14. Let every one of every condition avoid curiosity, and all inquiry into things that concern them not. For all business in things that concern us not, is an employing our time to no good of ours, and therefore not in order to a happy eternity. In this account our neighbours’ necessities are not to be reckoned: for they concern us, as one member is concerned in the grief of another: but going from house to house, tattlers and busybodies, which are the canker and rust of idleness, as idleness is the rust of time, are reproved by the apostle in severe language, and forbidden in order to this exercise.

15. As much as may be, cut off all impertinent and useless employments of your life unnecessary and fantastic visits, long waitings upon great personages, where neither duty, nor necessity, not charity, obliges us; all vain meetings, all laborious trifles, and whatsoever spends much time to no real, civil, religious, or charitable purpose.

16. Let not your recreations be lavish spenders of your time; but choose such which are healthful, short, transient, recreative, and apt to refresh you; but at no hand dwell upon them, or make them your great employment: for he that spends his time in sports, and calls it recreation, is like him whose garment is all made of fringes, and his meat nothing but sauces; they are healthless, chargeable, and useless. And therefore avoid such games, which require much time or long attendance; or which are apt to steal thy affections from more severe employments. For to whatsoever thou hast given thy affections, thou wilt not grudge to give thy time. Natural necessity and the example of St. John, who recreated himself with sporting with a tame partridge,Cassian, Bellat. 24. c.

xxi. teach us, that it is lawful to relax and unbend our bow, but not to suffer it to be unready or unstrung.

17. Set apart some portions of every day for more solemn devotion and religious employment, which be severe in observing: and if variety of employment, or prudent affairs, or civil society, press upon you, yet so order thy rule, that the necessary parts of it be not omitted; and though just occasions may make our prayers shorter, yet let nothing but a violent, sudden, and impatient necessity, make thee, upon any one day, wholly to omit thy morning and evening devotions; which if you be forced to make very short, you may supply and lengthen with ejaculations and short retirements in the day-time, in the midst of your employment or of your company.

18. Do not the ‘work of God negligently’Plutarch. de Curiosit. c. x. and idly: let not thy heart be upon the world when thy hand is lift up in prayer; and be sure to prefer an action of religion, in its place and proper season, before all worldly pleasure, letting secular things, that may be dispensed with in themselves, in these circumstances wait upon the other; not like the patriarch, who ran from the alter in St. Sophia to his stable, in all his pontificals, and in the midst of his office, to see a colt newly fallen from his beloved and much-valued mare Phorbante. More prudent and severe was that of Sir Thomas More, who, being sent for by the king when he was at his prayers in public, returned answer, he would attend him when he had first performed his service to the King of kings.

And it did honour to Rusticus,Jer. xiviii. 10. that, when letters from Caesar were given to him, he refused to open them till the philosopher had done his lecture. In honouring God and doing his work, put forth all thy strength; for of that time only thou mayest be most confident that it is gained, which is prudently and zealously spent in God’s service.

19. When the clock strikes, or however else you shall measure the day, it is good to say a short ejaculation every hour, that the parts and returns of devotion may be the measure of your time; and do so also in all the breaches of thy sleep; that those spaces, which have in them no direct business of the world, may be filled with religion.

20. If, by thus doing, you have not secured your time by an early and fore-handed care, yet be sure by a timely diligence to redeem the time; that is, to be pious and religious in such instances in which formerly you have sinned, and to bestow your time especially upon such graces, the contrary whereof you have formerly practised, doing actions of chastity and temperance with as great a zeal and earnestness as you did once act your uncleanness; and then, by all arts, to watch against your present and future dangers, from day to day securing your standing: this is properly to redeem your time, that is, to buy your security of it at the rate of any labour and honest acts.

21. Let him that is most busied set apart some solemn time every year,φδ δν αυτοτς ευοκιγλομτες, οτς ηυσρτομ, ευπρεπδπδσερμ δηυ απογιαμ εισαει φερομται. — Procop. 2 Vandal. in which, for the time, quitting all worldly business, he may attend wholly to fasting and prayer, and the dressing of his soul by confessions, meditations, and attendances upon God; that he may make up his accounts, renew his vows, make amends for his carelessness, and retire back again, from whence levity and the vanities of the world, or the opportunity of temptations, or the distraction of secular affairs, have carried him.

22. In this we shall be much assisted, and we shall find the work more easy, if, before we sleep, every night1 Cor. vii. 5. we examine the actions of the past day with a particular scrutiny, if there have been any accident extraordinary; as long discourse, a feast, much business, a variety of company. If nothing but common hath happened, the less examination will suffice; only let us take care that we sleep not without such a recollection of the actions of the day, as may represent any thing that is remarkable and great, either to be the matter of sorrow or thanksgiving: for other things a general care is proportionable.

23. Let all these things be done prudently and moderately, not with scruple and vexation. For these are good advantages, but the particulars are not Divine commandments; and therefore are to be used as shall be found expedient to every one’s condition. For provided that our duty be secured, for the degrees and for the instruments every man is permitted to himself and the conduct of such who shall be appointed to him. He is happy that can secure every hour to a sober or a pious employment: but the duty consists not scrupulously in minutes and half hours, but in greater portions of time; provided that no minute be employed in sin, and the great portions of our time be spent in sober employment, and all the appointed days, and some portions of every day, be allowed for religion. In all the lesser parts of time, we are left to our own elections and prudent management, and to the consideration of the great degrees and differences of glory that are laid up in heaven for us, according to the degrees of our care, and piety, and diligence.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Phil.3.14 — I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
  2. ↩2Cor.6.2 — For he says, 'In an acceptable time I listened to you, and on a day of salvation I helped you.' Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.
  3. ↩2Cor.6.2 — For he says, 'In an acceptable time I listened to you, and on a day of salvation I helped you.' Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.
  4. ↩Phil.2.12 — Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
  5. ↩Titus.3.14 — And let our people learn to devote themselves to good works, so as to help in cases of urgent need, so that they may not be unfruitful.
  6. ↩Eph.5.16;Col.4.5 — making the most of the time, because the days are evil. Col.4.5 — Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the time.
  7. ↩Col.1.5;1Pet.1.4;Matt.6.20;1Cor.15.41 — because of the hope laid up for you in the heavens, which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel 1Pet.1.4 — to an inheritance imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, reserved in heaven for you Matt.6.20 — But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal. 1Cor.15.41 — There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩Source “good husbands” is early-modern husbandry language (careful managers of household and work), not merely “married men”; rendered as “careful householders.”
  2. 2 ↩Source attaches the abbreviated citation “S. Bern.” to this sentence; rendered as “St. Bernard” and continued by the work title in the next sentence.
  3. 3 ↩Latin bibliographic title of the Bernardine work cited: de Triplici Custodia. Rendered in English as a work title; the Latin form may be preferred in notes.
  4. 4 ↩Source 'become' means befit/suit (not 'grow into'); rendered as 'suits.' 'Distracted' here means flighty or disordered in mind, not merely interrupted.
  5. 5 ↩The Domitian comparison is the classical anecdote of the emperor who occupied himself killing flies—emblem of trivial, wasteful busyness, not of industry.
  6. 6 ↩Source reads "befitted"; most plausible intended reading is "be fitted" (suited/fitted).
  7. 7 ↩Sentence appears truncated at "patriarch of C."; the following unit is only "P.", and the next section continues the thought. Likely a split abbreviation (C.P.).
  8. 8 ↩Isolated "P." almost certainly continues "patriarch of C." from the previous sentence as a split abbreviation (C.P.), with the exemplum completed in the following section.
  9. 9 ↩Taylor's image is deliberate: time rusts not from mere idleness but from sordid, unworthy work that corrodes labor itself.
  10. 10 ↩"Curious" here means careful/exacting in older English, not merely inquisitive; "quality" means social rank; "traffic of time" is the dealing or management of one's hours.
  11. 11 ↩"Improve a day" means put a day to profitable use, not merely upgrade it; "in order to arts or arms" means with a view to civil learning or military service.
  12. 12 ↩"Disemployment" means free time from paid trade, not modern unemployment as social crisis; "contrivances of it" means plans for managing the estate profitably and charitably.
  13. 13 ↩Source continues across the sentence break: 'St.' is completed by 'Paul' in the next sentence. The quoted clause is kept close to the traditional English form because Taylor treats it as St. Paul's wording.
  14. 14 ↩"In this account ... not to be reckoned" means neighbors' needs are excluded from the class of things that "concern us not"; charity still claims our time.
  15. 15 ↩Source reads "neither duty, nor necessity, not charity"; parallel neither/nor structure and sense strongly suggest "nor charity" (print slip of not for nor).
  16. 16 ↩Sentence is truncated by print-section break; continues in HolyLiving.1.3.17.s6 and the following section (HolyLiving.1.3.18).
  17. 17 ↩Cassian, Bellat. appears to be a scholarly citation (likely John Cassian); left as a citation tag rather than expanded. Missing space after the comma in the source is normalized lightly.
  18. 18 ↩Likely a citation numeral (e.g., chapter/section) belonging with 'Cassian, Bellat.' rather than freestanding prose.
  19. 19 ↩Likely a citation letter (e.g., collatio/chapter marker) continuing the Cassian reference; the next section begins the clause that completes the thought.
  20. 20 ↩Source 'ejaculations' means short spontaneous prayers (ejaculatory prayers), not modern sexual sense; rendered as 'brief prayers'.
  21. 21 ↩Source abbreviation 'de Curiosit.' expanded as Plutarch's essay De curiositate (On Curiosity).
  22. 22 ↩Source reads 'alter'; translated as the intended 'altar'.
  23. 23 ↩'Pontificals' kept as full pontifical vestments (ceremonial clerical dress), not modern ecclesiastical office-holders.
  24. 24 ↩Source runs citation into the name as 'Rusticus,Jer.'; rendered as a clear Jerome citation tag continuing into the following reference fragments.
  25. 25 ↩Citation fragment 'xiviii.' is not a standard Roman numeral as written; it may be a corruption of 'xlviii.' or 'xviii.' Left as in source pending witness check.
  26. 26 ↩In Taylor's English, 'ejaculation' means a brief spontaneous prayer (an ejaculatory prayer), not the modern sexual sense; rendered here as 'short prayer'.
  27. 27 ↩“Redeem the time” is kept as the traditional Pauline phrasing (buy back / make full use of time); Taylor glosses it commercially as purchasing security for time at the price of labor and honest acts.
  28. 28 ↩After the English clause the source inserts a run of garbled Greek characters (likely a mis-OCR’d marginal citation to Procopius). Translated only the clear English sense; the Greek is not rendered as continuous prose.
  29. 29 ↩Abbreviated citation label in the source; expanded for modern readability as Procopius.
  30. 30 ↩Source reads '2 Vandal.'; rendered as the conventional work-and-book citation (Procopius, Vandalic Wars, book 2).
  31. 31 ↩'Dressing of his soul' rendered as 'tending of his soul' (older English dress = prepare/order carefully), not clothing imagery.
  32. 32 ↩Source joins the start of a citation to the sentence end as 'night1 Cor.'; rendered as ordinary English and treated the following 'vii.' / '5.' units as the rest of the 1 Cor. 7:5 citation fragment.
  33. 33 ↩'Accident extraordinary' means an unusual occurrence or circumstance, not a mishap; rendered as 'anything out of the ordinary.'
  34. 34 ↩“degrees” and “instruments” here mean the intensity or measure of practice and the particular means or methods used to fulfill the duty, not mechanical tools.

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