Consult your elders, use their sense alone,
Till age and practice have confirm’d your own.
INDUSTRY AND SLOTH.
An indolent Young Man being asked why he lay in bed so long? jocosely answered, “Every morning of my life I am hearing causes. I have two fine girls, their names are Industry and Sloth, close at my bed-side as soon as I awake, pressing their different suits. One intreats me to get up, the other persuades me to lie still; and then they alternately give me various reasons why I should rise, and why I should not. This detains me so long, (it being the duty of an impartial judge to hear all that can be said on either side) that before the pleadings are over, it is time to go to dinner.”
APPLICATION.
“He who defers his work from day to day,
Does on a river’s brink expecting stay,
’Till the whole stream which stopt him shall be gone,
Which, as it runs, for ever will run on.”
Indolence is like a stream which flows slowly on, but yet it undermines every virtue; it rusts the mind, and gives a tincture to every action of one’s life, the term of which does not allow time for long protracted deliberations; and yet how many waste more of their time in idly considering which of two affairs to begin first, than would have ended them both? To-morrow is still the fatal time when all is to be done; to-morrow comes, it goes, and still indolence pleases itself with the shadow, while it loses the substance: and thus men pass through life like a bird through the air, and leave no track behind them, unmindful that the present time alone is ours, and should be managed with judicious care, since we cannot secure a moment to come, nor recal one that is past. It is no matter how many good qualities the mind may be possessed of; they all lie dormant if we want the necessary vigour and resolution to draw them forth; for this slumber of the mind leaves no difference between the greatest genius and the meanest understanding. Neither the mind nor the body can be active and vigorous without proper exertion, and trouble springs from idleness, and grievous toil from useless ease; therefore, “whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might, for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave, whither thou goest.”