Thus God has made all things to be active. All nature, animate and inanimate, calls man to labor. If old ocean did not ebb and flow, and roll its waves, it would stagnate, and become so noxious that no animal could live on the face of the earth. If the earth did not pursue its laborious course around its axis, one half of its inhabitants would be shrouded in perpetual night, while the other half would be scorched to death with the ever-accumulating intensity of the sun’s rays. Can you find any thing, in all the vast creation of God, that is idle? The sluggard, of all God’s works, stands alone—idle! He resembles the stagnant pool, whose impure waters, filled with the loathsome creatures, and all manner of filth, saturate the atmosphere with pestilential vapors, and spread around it disease and death. But, the active, industrious man, resembles the running brook, whose waters are kept limpid and clear by their unceasing flow.
“Business first, and then Pleasure.”
A man who is very rich now, was very poor when he was a boy. When asked how he got his riches, he replied, “My father taught me never to play till all my work for the day was finished, and never to spend money till I had earned it. If I had but half an hour’s work to do in a day, I must do that the first thing, and in half an hour. After this was done, I was allowed to play; and I could then play with much more pleasure than if I had the thought of an unfinished task before my mind. I early formed the habit of doing every thing in its time, and it soon became perfectly easy to do so. It is to this habit that I now owe my prosperity.” Let every boy who reads this, go and do likewise, and he will meet a similar reward.
Industry.
A gentleman in England had an estate which was worth about a thousand dollars a year. For a while, he kept his farm in his own hands; but at length, he found himself so much in debt that he was obliged to sell one half of his place, to pay up. The rest, he let to a farmer for twenty-one years. Towards the end of that time, the farmer on coming to pay his rent, asked him whether he would sell his farm. The gentleman was surprised that the farmer should be able to make him an offer for his place. “Pray tell me,” said he, “how it happens, that, while I could not live upon twice as much land, for which I paid no rent, you are regularly paying me five hundred dollars a year for your farm, and able in a few years to purchase it?” “The reason is plain,” answered the farmer: “You sat still, and said ‘Go.’ I got up and said, ‘Come.’ You lay in bed, and enjoyed your ease. I rose in the morning, and minded my business.”
This anecdote shows the folly of those young men, who set up for gentlemen, and despise labor and useful employment. Though they may begin with a good capital, they will soon run down, if they depend upon others to do their business. If they have nothing, they will certainly gain nothing. Laziness, poverty, and rags, will go together.
CHAPTER VI.
TRUE GREATNESS.
True Greatness does not consist in feeling above others.
