Into hearts impervious to all else, the writers of the Bible drove the javelins of ridicule.
The Sluggard.
If anything could make a lazy man feel uncomfortable, it would be such thorns as those Solomon has planted in his pillow:—
“I went by the field of the slothful,
And by the vineyard of the man void of understanding;
And lo! it was all grown over with thorns,
The face thereof was covered with nettles,
And the stone wall thereof was broken down.
Then I beheld and considered well,
I saw and received instruction:
‘A little sleep, a little slumber,
A little folding of the hands to sleep.’
So shall thy poverty come as a robber,
And thy want as an armed man.
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How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard,
When wilt thou rouse thee out of thy sleep?”
The Unfaithful Friend.
If anything could make an unfaithful and deceitful friend, one who professes much in times of prosperity and performs nothing in times of need, ashamed of himself, it would be such a comparison as we find in the book of Job:—
“My brethren are deceitful, like the brook
As the channel of brooks that pass away,
They become turbid from ice,
The snow hides itself in them.
At the time they are poured off, they fail;
When it is hot they are consumed from their place.
The caravans along their way turn aside;
They go up into the wastes and perish.
The caravans of Tema looked,
The companies of Sheba hoped for them;
They were ashamed that they had trusted,
They came thither and were confounded.”
The friends of Job were like streams in the early spring, when melting ice and snow filled their channels, and the waters were not needed; but in the heat of summer, when fainting caravans looked for refreshment, dry and dusty.
The Drunkard.
If anything could move a drunkard to forswear his cups and lead a sober life, it would be such a sarcastic description of him as that which follows:—