the recreancy which he had just before denounced with such confidence and pride. and was Lucifer proudly aspired to be like God in power, thrown down from heaven; Adam strove to be like him in knowledge, and was expelled from Eden; but Christ, the Redeemer of the lost, obeyed God perfectly and obtained an everlasting inheritance for all who humbly believe on him. Beware of pride, the fearful influence of which extends through the present life, and sometimes even beyond. Said an Indian chief, who died at Washington, "When I am dead let the big guns be fired over me." The rich man, scorning to repose lowly like ordinary mortals, not unfrequently orders his own sarcophagus, and builds a family tomb replete with vain display, and destined to be the monument of posthumous pride. But what will all these hollow and perishable decorations avail your soul departing to the judgment-seat? They will be as barren of comfort as the shroud of the grave round your cold body. Dying in sin, God will mock when your fear cometh. The scorner will thenceforth be eternally scorned. If you madly waste life, in the frivolous pursuits of him who dealeth in proud wrath, then the hour will suddenly arrive when you can no more avert the scorner's awful doom, than with your dead hand you can arrest the undertaker who screws the coffin-lid closely down upon your marble brow and heart congealed. CHAPTER XI. IDLENESS; OR, THE SLOTHFUL SELF-MURDERED. THE wise man tells us that "the desire of the slothful killeth him; for his hands refuse to labor," Prov. 21: 25. This declaration presents to us the murderous influence of indolence, a subject worthy of profound attention. In the present discussion, it will be our purpose to show that idleness courts temptation; cripples enterprise; multiplies sorrow; and enhances the pangs of an eternal doom. In the first place, idleness courts the strongest and most successful attacks of temptation. Vice is the perpetual concomitant of indolence. Waters that are still soon stagnate, and from stagnation malaria, noxious and far-spreading, will inevitably be generated. In all communities where there is a lack of virtuous enterprise, crime walks with gigantic strides and desolating force. While we refuse to sow wheat, the enemy will be busy in sowing tares. An empty mind is the devil's laboratory, in which the most deadly concoctions are manufactured and diffused. David yielded to temptation, and fell into outrageous sin, only when he had become indolent. Says bishop Hall, "Now only do I see the king of Israel rising from his bed in the evening; the time was, when he rose up in the morning to his early devotions; when he brake his nightly rest with public cares, with the business of the State: all that while, he was innocent, he was holy; but now that he wallows in the bed of idleness, he is fit to invite temptation. The industrious man hath no leisure to sin; the idle hath neither leisure nor power to avoid sin. Exercise is not more wholesome for the body than for the soul, the remission whereof breeds matter of disease in both. The water that hath been heated, soonest freezeth. The most active spirit soonest tireth with slackening. The earth stands still, and is all dregs; the heavens ever move, and are pure. We have no reason to complain of the assiduity of the work; the toil of action is answered by the benefit; if we did less we should suffer more. Satan, like an idle companion, if he finds us busy, flies back, and sees it no time to entertain vain purposes with us: we cannot please him better, than by casting away our work, to hold chat with him; we cannot yield so far, and be guiltless." Prince Eugene said to a friend, that in the course of his life, he had been exposed to many Potiphars, to all of whom he had proved a Joseph, merely because he had so many other things to attend to. The surest way to avoid evil snares is to be well and constantly occupied. The Turks have a proverb, which says, that the devil tempts all other men, but that idle men tempt the devil. In the second place, idleness cripples the best energies of all dignified enterprise. God hath a bountiful hand, and filleth all things living with plenteousness; but unless we have a diligent hand, wherewith to receive and secure it, we starve. Said bishop Sanderson, " He that by the sloth of his hand disfurnisheth himself of the means of getting, he is as near of kin to a waster as may be." Solomon himself has told us that, "He also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster." The bases of the vices touch each other, and there are strong affinities that bind them closely together. The sluggard and the prodigal are twin-born of the same parentage. The slothful has no heart for work, and the prodigal has no prudence to preserve the fruits of honorable toil. The ancient Bramins were accustomed to sit unmoved under a tree in stupid gaze at a speck in the heavens, imagining that God was as idle as they were. Many moderns are employed in achieving about the same degrees of dignity and use. But where is the spot on our globe that looks as if God designed it for the paradise of lazy folks? He who has nothing to do, has no business to live. It is easy to recognize the place where the indolent do reside. It is a locality vividly drawn in Proverbs. "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, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down. Then I saw and considered it well; I looked upon it and received instruction. Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep; so shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth; and thy want as an armed man.” On the contrary, in the language of the same author, “the thoughts of the diligent tend only to plenteousness." Diligence is the eternal prerequisite to prosperity and health. Said Swinnock, "Thou mayest as well expect riches to rain down from heaven in silver showers, as to provide for thy family without industry in thy calling." "Sure, he that made us with such large discourse, That capability and God-like reason The mental faculties contract indolent habits with as much facility as the physical. When one begins to lean on others for support, he will soon end by being incapable of either supporting others or himself. Such fickle and indolent persons stagger about with a tottering and indecisive step; in the language of Solomon, "the labor of the foolish wearieth every one of them, because he knoweth not how to go to the city." They flutter from one object to another, and lounge along at hazard. No wind to them is favorable, because they have no particular harbor in view; no star is propitious, since their eye is fixed with solicitude on none. If the time which is squandered in relaxing and debasing the powers of both body and mind, were employed in fortifying those powers in healthful discipline, we should not at the years of maturity be at a loss for an occupation, nor be left to waste the fire of fine talent which industry had matured. Steel is sooner destroyed by rust than by use. There is an old Scottish legend, which represents the spirit that serves the wizard as being by necessity constantly employed; to suspend the work for a moment was to rend the enchanter. Such is the condition of the devotee of high excellence; that boon is won only at the price of perpetual toil. But most persons proceed as if they expected to obtain wisdom, as Abu Zeid al Hassan declares some Chinese philosophers thought oysters got their pearls, viz. by gaping! The deplorable vice of idleness has wrought the ruin of thousands in all time. Pollok thus describes it: "Two principles from the beginning strove Toiled ardently, and late retired to rest; |