CHAPTER XII.

INDUSTRY;

OR, THE DILIGENT MADE RICH.

THE theme of the present discussion is found in Proverbs 10: 4. "He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich." This maxim we shall expand and illustrate under the following heads.

Industry is an exhilarating privilege, vouchsafed to promote the serenest happiness on earth; it is an honorable grace, given as the means of acquiring the best wealth; and is a Christian obligation, imposed upon our race to develop the noblest energies and insure the highest reward.

In the first place, the serenest happiness we can enjoy on earth is derived from virtuous industry. "It is with us as with other things in nature," says Barrow, "which by motion are preserved in their native purity and perfection, in their sweetness, in their lustre, rest corrupting, debasing, and defiling them. If the water runneth, it holdeth clear, sweet, and fresh; but stagnation turneth it into a noisome puddle; if the air be fanned by winds, it is pure and wholesome; but from being shut up, it groweth thick and putrid; if metals be employed, they abide smooth and splendid; but lay them up, and they soon contract rust; if the earth be belabored with culture, it yieldeth corn; but lying neglected, it will be overgrown with brakes and thistles; and the better the soil is, the ranker weeds it will produce; all nature is upheld in its being, order, and state, by constant agitation; every creature is incessantly employed in action conformable to its designed end

and use; in like manner the preservation and improvement of our faculties depends on their constant exercise."

Nine-tenths of the miseries and vices of mankind proceed from indolence and idleness. Persons who have naturally active minds, whose "quick thoughts like lightning are alive,”are most perniciously affected by the evils of sloth. The favored sons of genius, endowed with great original powers, were not made for repose; indolence will quickly "freeze the genial current of the soul," and if left idle long they perish from inaction, like a scimitar corroded and destroyed by rust. But the active occupation of our faculties is a safeguard against three great evils, vice, penury, and desponding gloom. Says Colton, "Ennui has made more gamblers than avarice, more drunkards than thirst, and more suicides than despair." If we would be both useful and happy, we must keep ourselves industriously and virtuously employed. Old Dumbiedikes was wise in charging his son to "be aye sticking in a tree when he had naething else to do." Count de Caylus, a French nobleman, being born to wealth and princely idleness, turned his attention to engraving and made many fine copies of antique gems. One of the nobility demanded from him a reason for this procedure, and was told by the industrious Count, “I engrave, that I may not hang myself."

without being

Action is life

It is an old maxim, that "nothing moves moved," a simple truism, but full of meaning. and health; repose is death and corruption. Says an old writer, "Industry is commended to us by all sorts of examples, deserving our regard and imitation. All nature is a copy thereof, and the whole world a glass wherein we may behold this duty represented to us. We may easily observe every creature about us incessantly working toward the end for which it was designed, indefatigably exercising the powers with which it is endued, diligently observing the laws of its creation. Even beings void of reason, of sense, of life itself, do suggest unto us resemblances of industry; they being set in continual action

toward the effecting reasonable purposes, conducing to the preservation of their own beings, or to the furtherance of common good. The heavens do roll about with unwearied motion; the sun and stars do perpetually dart their influences; the earth is ever laboring in the birth and nourishment of plants; the plants are drawing sap and sprouting out fruits and reeds, to feed us and propagate themselves; the rivers are running, the seas are tossing, the winds are blustering, to keep the elements sweet in which we live."

God never favors the idle with visions of divine glory, nor will he be likely to protect such by the aids of his grace. As long as the monarch of Israel was industrious he was happy and innocent; but as soon as he reclined on the couch of idleness he became the dupe of temptation. Those who are actively employed in honorable pursuits, have little time for evil indulgence; but the idle have neither the leisure nor power to avoid sin. Active habits essentially promote the health of both body and soul. "In fine," says Barrow, "industry doth free us from great displeasure, by redeeming us from the molestations of idleness, which is the most tedious and irksome thing in the world, racking our soul with anxious suspense and perplexing distraction; starving it for want of satisfactory entertainment, or causing it to feed on its own heart by doleful considerations; infesting it with crowds of frivolous, melancholic, troublesome, stinging thoughts; galling it with a sense of our squandering away precious time, or our slipping fair opportunities, and of our not using the abilities and advantages granted us, to any profit or fruit.”

There are many people in the world who seem to be of no earthly use, and who certainly exert no heavenly influence. Persons of the true stamp are "not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." But divers individuals appear to have no business, and are fervent in no wholesome exercise. If they are busy at all, it is the busy idleness described in the Castle of Indolence:

"Their only labor is to kill the time,
And labor dire it is, and weary wo.

They sit, they loll, turn o'er some idle rhyme,
Or saunter forth, with tottering steps and slow:

This soon too rude an exercise they find-
Straight on the couch their limbs again they throw,

Where hours on hours they sighing lie reclined,

And court the vapory god soft-breathing in the wind."

But such languishing drones are always invested with the flames of torment which their own indolent habits ignite and feed. Chrysostom said truly, that "there is nothing more unpleasant, more painful, more miserable, than a man that hath nothing to do: Is not this, saith he, worse than ten thousand chains, to hang in suspense, and be continually gaping, looking on those who are present ?"

On the contrary, industry gives repose its sweetest balm, appetite its strongest zest, and life its most grateful relish. Says Solomon, "The sleep of a laboring man is sweet." In another proverb he adds, "The slothful man roasteth not that which he took in hunting," and therefore it cannot be very grateful to him; but, says he, "the substance of a diligent man is precious;" that is, what a man has himself earned, he will duly prize. The exhilaration of mind experienced by the enterprising in obtaining property is more pleasing and satisfactory than the greatest amount of wealth when once acquired. The best thing about hunting is the vigorous sport afforded by the pursuit of the game, and not the mercenary consideration of its intrinsic value. The exercise and the triumph are much more valuable than the spoils, while no dish is so grateful to the voracious appetite as the game we have ourselves caught. It is this great law of our nature that the wise preacher referred to in the proverb just quoted respecting the hunter, and in relation to which the golden-mouthed patriarch of the Greek church said: "Our soul is more affected with those things for which it hath labored; for which reason, God

hath mixed labors with virtue itself, that he might endear it to us."

Solon made laws expressly to punish idleness, and it is a pity that modern legislation could not reach and rectify this evil; but unfortunately our law-makers are too often the most outrageous offenders on this score. Cicero said of an indolent man, "he draws his breath, but doth not live." There are none of the strong, healthy pulsations of life about him. He is his own greatest plague, the dupe and abode of demons, a mass of corruption that breeds contagion among the pure and deserves the contempt of all. Cassian said, "A working monk is assaulted by one devil, but an idle one is infested by unnumbered infernal spirits." Indolence is a great vice and quite too common. To counteract its pernicious tendencies, we need a vast increase of high and holy enterprise. It is not the placidity of stupid ease that we should covet, but the repose which is requisite for the renewal of exhausted strength, the serenity that succeeds the storm, and the salubrity that repays its ravages. The hurricane is more profitable than perpetual calm. "Tempests may shake our dwellings and dissipate our commerce, but they scourge before them the lazy elements, which otherwise would stagnate into pestilence.”

In the second place, industry is an honorable grace, given as the means of acquiring the best wealth. The Lord's visitations of distinguished favor are always to the diligent. That great men may not be ashamed of honest vocations, the greatest that ever lived have been contented, happy, and honored while in the pursuit of humble trades. Moses, in all his mental growth, and in all his ascent in the scale of dignity, clung to his shepherd's crook. David, like Moses, was engaged in manual toil, when called to impart the highest instruction and exercise sovereign power. Elisha was at the plough, when called to be a prophet; Gideon was at the threshing-floor, when summoned to lead the hosts of Israel; and the shepherds of Bethlehem were wakeful and diligent in the care of