The Moral Plough Boy.
"In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand."
The words of our motto were probably addressed by an Eastern monarch to those of his subjects, who followed husbandry, and to whom the importance of early rising was the greater, as the climate was excessively warm, and the stoutest labourer found the noon-tide heat too powerful for the energies of his frame to encounter.—This is the case in most of the oriental climes, where the morning and the evening are improved by the cultivator of the soil, as well as the man of business of every class, cast or profession.—The middle or hottest part of the day is, in those countries, given to ease and relaxation; and the charms of conversation, and the sweets of refreshment, are then the substitutes for toil and care.
But the time thus spent is not lost, because they attend strictly to the advice of the sacred moralist, and make it up by the fidelity of their morning and evening labours in the field, the workship or the counting-room. Besides the earth is there more prolific than in colder climes, like ours, and to less labour yields a greater supply, a more abundant harvest.
But abundantly as the earth yields her products, beneath an oriental sky, still it was there that man was first taught by his Maker, that she would not yield them without the sweat of the human brow. Implicit obedience was the first law given to our progenitors in Eden, as the condition of enjoying life without labour, of being surrounded by the perpetual verdure of spring, and regaled by the never-dying fragrance of its odours: But this fair condition violated, and they were doomed to know, that fruitful as the earth had come from the hands of its Creator, they should cultivate it with toil, and care, and anxiety, before it should yield them the means of enjoyment and subsistence. But for one fatal mistake, they would never have been called upon to sow their seed in the morning, and at evening to watch over it with a careful hand.
We have seen then, that the first Plough Boys were obliged to work early and late; and their successors in the same climes, are still subjected to the same diurnal labour.
But the American Plough Boy enjoys a milder clime, and may perhaps think himself less obliged to rise with the dawn of day, or pursue his labours with the declining sun. He may perhaps flatter himself that the morning may be spent at a neighbouring bar-room, and the evening at a shooting-match or a horse-race, and the day still afford time enough for all the labour that he may have to perform. But this is, indeed, an error the most fatal to his present, as well as future happiness. The mid-day beams of the sun are not so fierce on the hills or vales of America, as on the plains of Asia, where our first parents were doomed to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow. But they are still fierce enough to make the Plough Boy feel their enervating effects, and to impress upon his physical as well as mental frame the necessity and importance of sowing his seed in the morning, and of extending to it the vigilance of his hand in the evening.
If our American Plough Boys would, one and all, adopt with energy and perseverance this injunction of oriental wisdom, how different would be the face of our country, in many places, from what it now is! How many orchards would be planted; how many fruit trees, of every kind, would be seen growing in beauty and luxuriance, where now the eye of the traveller, or sojourner, is obliged to rest upon nought but wilds and weeds? How many fields would be ploughed and sown, and cultivated with success, which now lie waste, and barren as the deserts of Arabia. How many cattle, and domestic animals of every description, fit for the use of man, would be seen thriving and healthy, awaiting a profitable market, where now there are none, or those whose sickly and squalid appearance, bespeaks the indolence and neglect of their owners! How many substantial rail fences would be erected, where there is now scarcely a brush bulwark against the encroachments of man or beast? How many neat stone walls would take the place of rail fences, and remain as lasting monuments of the virtue of their owners—for industry and virtue are synonimous in agricultural life! How many ditches would be seen running through our swamps, and yielding or restoring to wholesome vegetation, those nurseries of wild, unprofitable, and poisonous plants; whose dark, damp shades are not only lost to agriculture; but send forth daily their pestilential vapours, spreading disease and death among the Plough Boys!
It is not the industrious Plough Boy who will feel the application of these remarks. He will take care that his fields and his fences, his flourishing fruit-trees, his overflowing cribs and barns, and his fat cattle, plump and smooth as a turtle-fed alderman, shall prove to the world that he never fails to attend to the admonition of our motto.
But it is to the slothful that this short essay is addressed. Pluck up the weeds, and the useful plants will take care of themselves. Reform the indolent, and the industrious will find a new spur to exertion. Ye careless and slothful Plough Boys, then, be advised by a friend. Cast off the sin of idleness, which so easily besets you, and imitate your industrious neighbours. Resolve for the future, in the morning to sow your seed, and in the evening to withhold not your hand; and you will soon find, that the blessings of Heaven await those who deserve them; and that health, prosperity, and a quiet conscience, are the never-failing rewards of virtuous industry. H. H. Jr. [Plough Boy.