The paragraphs which follow, pertaining to tardiness at committee meetings, may be profitably scanned by every preacher in our ranks. They appeared in The Christian Century of November 20, 1946:
"Here is a committee of busy men. Enter a latecomer with an apologetic smile. 'So sorry, Mr. Chairman, to be late.
'"Then I suggest the chairman should fling manners to the winds and say: 'You are late, sir, disgracefully late. Every one of us, twenty in all, have been kept waiting ten minutes, making a total of two hundred minutes, or in other words, three hours and twenty minutes. What that is worth in the best working time of the day can be reckoned, if you like, at the very low figure of two dollars an hour. Then you are responsible for a waste of nearly seven dollars, and if you want to lift your head again among honest men you will drop seven dollars in the plate next Sunday as conscience money.
'"Or perhaps a more salutary way would be not to wait for the tardy one, but tell him when at last he arrives: 'We are in the middle of important business ; you will catch up as best you can. It will not be easy. I am afraid we have already dealt with a question upon which you have decided views. We cannot go back. So now will you proceed with the matter in hand.' . . .
"No, there is no remedy for unpunctuality to which one can trust, except a dose of elementary Christian morals: let no man think of his own time, but of the time of others. Let no man waste either his own or his brother's life by turning up late. It will be only by taking seriously the kindergarten teachings of the Christian faith, which all of us take for granted, that we shall be able to see unpunctuality in its true light as a wanton waste of life. The unpunctual man does not even steal my time; he just wastes it."
(Reproduced by permission.)
