The watchman can not descry the features of the fast approaching man, but he exclaims:
“I have found out who he is. The driving is like the driving of Jehu, the son of Nimshi; for he driveth furiously.”
By the flash of that one sentence we discover Jehu’s character. He came with such speed not merely because he had an errand to do, but because he was urged on by a headlong disposition, which had won him the name of a reckless driver, even among the watchmen. The chariot plunges until you almost expect the wheels to crash under it, or some of the princely party to be thrown out, or the horses to become utterly unmanageable. But he always goes so; and he becomes a type of that class of persons to be found in all communities, who in worldly and in religious affairs may be styled reckless drivers.
To this same class belong all those who conduct their worldly affairs in a headlong way, without any regard to prudence or righteousness. The minister of Christ does not do his whole duty who does not plainly and unmistakably bring the Gospel face to face with every style of business transaction. We have a right, in a Christian manner, to point out those who, year by year, are jeopardizing not only their welfare, but the interests of many others, by reckless driving.
As a hackman, having lost control of a flying span, is apt to crash into other vehicles, until the property and lives of a whole street are endangered, so a man driving his worldly calling with such loose reins that, after a while, it will not answer his voice or hand, puts in peril the commercial interests of scores or hundreds.
There are today in our midst many of our best citizens who have come down from affluence into straitened circumstances, because there was a partner in their firm, or a cashier in their bank, or an agent representing their house, or one of their largest creditors, who, like Jehu, the son of Nimshi, was a furious driver.
When I see in the community men with large incomes, but larger outgoes, rushing into wildest undertakings, their pockets filled with circulars about gold to be found in Canada and lead in Missouri and fortunes of all sorts everywhere, launching out in expenditures to be met with the thousands they expect to make, and with derision dashing across the path of sober men depending upon their industry and honor for success, I say: “Here he comes, the son of Nimshi, driving furiously.”
When I see a young man, not content gradually to come to a competency, careless as to how often he goes upon credit, spending in one night’s carousal a month’s salary, taking the few hundred dollars given him for getting a start in the purchase of a regal wardrobe, lazy or ashamed to work, anxious only for display, regardless of his father’s counsel and the example of the thousands who, in a short while, have wrecked body, mind and soul in scheming or dissipation, I say: “Here he comes, the son of Nimshi, driving furiously.”