God is a God of order, not the author of confusion; and if we would develop characters after the divine likeness, we shall carefully avoid habits and practices that will lead to untidiness, confusion, and disorder. The unerring accuracy with which the astronomer tells the time of the stars’ appearance, the uniformity with which the earth keeps up its march around the sun, as well as the great law of cause and effect, sowing and reaping, whose operations may be daily observed in both the physical and the spiritual world, teach us that regularity, punctuality, faithfulness, and reliability are attributes of the divine character. The infinite care with which God arranges all things in nature, the carefulness with which each little particle of starch in a kernel of wheat is wrapped in a separate envelope, and each little globule of fat in milk is surrounded with its covering of casein—all these things are evidences of the painstaking care with which the Creator attends to even the smallest details of His great work.

That boy or girl, young man or young woman, who comes into the house, and throws off his/her coat and shoes anywhere; whose room is ever in a state of disorder and confusion; who, instead of having a place for everything, has no place for anything, may be sure that the character he/she is building will be but reflections of these habits of confusion and disorder. Such persons will think in a disconnected manner. Their conversation will be lacking in soundness and sobriety. Their Christian experience is likely to be fitful and unsatisfactory—one day extremely hopeful and buoyant, the next disheartened and discouraged. Carefulness all along the line, even in the smallest matters in our experience, is required, to insure having it in more important events.