The close of the day, however, is a specially important season for
cultivating the habit of conscientiousness. Sleep is the image of
death, as some have said; and if so, we may consider ourselves at bed-
time, as standing on the borders of the grave, where all things should
look serious.

The "cool of the day" is peculiarly adapted to reflection. Let every
one, at this time, recall the circumstances of the day, and consider
wherein things have been wrong. It was a sacred rule among the
Pythagoreans, every evening, to run thrice over, in their minds, the
events of the day; and shall Christians do less than heathen?

The Pythagoreans did more than cultivate a habit of recalling their
errors; they asked themselves what good they had done. So should we. We
should remember that it is not only sinful to do wrong, but that it is
also sinful to _omit to do right_. The young woman who fears she
has said something in regard to a fellow being in a certain place, or
in certain company, which she ought not to have said, as it may do that
person injury, should remember, that not to have said something, when a
favorable opportunity offered, which might have done a companion or
neighbor good, was also equally wrong. And above all, she should
remember, that both the _commission_ and the _omission_ were
sins against that God who gave her a tongue to do good with, and not to
do harm; and not only to do good with, but to do the greatest possible
amount of good.

In short, it should be the constant practice of every one who has the
love of eternal improvement strongly implanted in her bosom, to
consider every action performed, during the day, as sinful, when it has
not been done in the best possible manner, whether it may have been one