Industry

We have shown how this precept is violated by various descriptions of persons; by those who have no business at all, and those whose business is only an active idleness; and finally, by those who, having a lawful business — a good and honourable work assigned them, do it reluctantly or drowsily, or leave it altogether undone.

There are some who have no business, and are of no use in the world. They are doing no good and attempting none; and when they are taken out of the world, their removal creates no vacancy. When an oak, or any noble and useful tree is uprooted, its removal creates a blank. For years after, when you look to the place which once knew it, you see that something is missing. The branches of adjacent trees have not yet supplied the void. They still hesitate to occupy the place formerly filled by their powerful neighbour; and there is still a deep chasm in the ground — a rugged pit which shows how far the giant-roots once spread. But when a leafless pole — a wooden pin is plucked up, it comes easy and clean away. There is no rending of the turf, no marring of the landscape, no vacuity created, no regret. It leaves no memento, and is never missed. Now, which are you? Are you cedars, planted in the house of the Lord, casting a cool and grateful shadow on those around you? Are you palm-trees, rich and flourishing, yielding bounteous fruit, and making all who know you bless you? Are you so useful, that were you once away, it would not be easy to fill your place again; but people, as they pointed to the void in the plantation — the pit in the ground, would say, “It was here that that brave cedar grew: it was here that that old palm-tree diffused his familiar shadow and showered his mellow clusters I” Or are you a peg — a pin — a rootless, branchkss, fruitless thing that may be pulled up any day, and no one ever care to ask what has become of it? What are you doing? What are you contributing to the world’s happiness, or the Church’s glory? What is your business?

Individuals there are who are doing something, though it would be difficult to specify what. They are busy; but it is a busy idleness*

“Their only labour is to kill the time. And labour 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 — Strait on the couch their limbs again they throw, Where hours on hours they sighing lie reclined, And court the rapoury god soft-breathing in the wind.”

They think that they are busy, though iheir chief business be to get quit of themselves. To amiihilate time, to quiet conscience, to banish care, to keep ennui out at one door and serious thoughts out at the other, gives ihcm all their occupation. And, betwixt their fluttering visits and frivolous engagements.

their midnight diversions, their haggard mornings, and shortened days, their yawning attempts at reading, and sulky appHcation to matters of business which they cannot well evade; betwixt mobs of callers and shoals of ceremonious notes, they fuss and fret themselves into the pleasant belief that they are the most worried and hard-driven of mortal creatures. Even when groaning in prospect of interminable hours, they have not a moment to spare; and a chief employment of their leisure is to appear in a constant hurry. Could you imbody in matter-of-fact all their sham activity and bustling show; could you write down a truthful enumeration of the doings of a single week, I fear there would not be found one act which, were He saying, “Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee,” the Judge of all would accept as a right deed or rightly done. It is possible to be very busy, and yet very idle. It is possible to be serious about trifles, and to exhaust one’s energies in doing nothing. It is possible to be toiling all one’s days in doing that which, in the infatifation of fashion, or the delirium of ambition.

will look exceedingly august and important; but which the first flash of eternity will transmute into shame and everlasting contempt.

Then, among those who have really got a work to do — whose calling is lawful or something more — perhaps a direct vocation in the service of God — there are three classes who violate the precept of the text — those who do their work grudgingly, or drowsih’, or not at all — the sloths, the somnambuHsts, and the day-dreamers. Some do it grudgingly They have not a heart for work; and of all work, least heart for that which God has given them. Instead of that angelic alacrity which speeds instinctively on the service which God assigns; that healthy love of labour which a loyal and well-conditioned soul would exhibit, they postpone every thing to the latest moment, and then go whimpering and growling to the hated task as if they were about to undergo some dismal punishment. They have a strange idea of occupation. They look on it as a drug, a penally, a goblin, a fiend, something very fierce and cruel, something very nauseous; and they would gladly smuggle through existence by one of those side-paths 3- so LIFE IN KARNEST.

which the grim giants, labour and industry, do not guard.

Others again, who do not quite refuse their work, put only half a soul into it. They have no zeal for their profession. They somehow scramble through it; but it is without any noble enthusiasm — any appetite for work or any love to the God who gives it. If they are intrusted with the property of others, they cannot boast as Jacob did: “In the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep departed from mine eyes. God hath seen mine affliction and the labour of my hands.” If intrusted with the souls of others, they cannot reckon up “the abundant labours, the often journeyings, the weariness and painfulness, the watchings, the hunger and thirst,” the perils and privations which, for the love of his Master and his Master’s work, the apostle of the Gentiles joyfully encountered. If scholars, they are content to learn the lesson, so that no fault shall be found. If at service, they aspire to nothing more than fulfilling their inevitable toils. And if occupying official stations, they are satisfied with a decent discharge of customary duties, and are glad if they leave things no worse than they found them. They are hirelings; heartless in all they do. Their work is so sleepily done that it is enough to make you lethargic to labour in their company; and, before they go zealously and wakefully to work, they would need to be startled up into the day-light of actual existence — they would need to be shaken from that torpor into which the very sight of labour is apt to entrance them. Oh, happier far, to lose health and life itself in clear, brisk, conscious working; to spend the last atom of strength, and yield the vital spark itself in joyful, wakeful efforts for Him who did all for us — than to drawl through a dreaming life, with all the fatigue of labour and nothing of its sweetness; snoring in a constant lethargy; sleeping while you work, and night-mared with labour when you really sleep.

And, besides the procrastinating class, those are “slothful in business” who do no business at all. And there are such persons — agreeable, self-complacent, plausible persons — who really fancy that they have done a great deal because they have intended to do so much. Their life is made up of good purposes, splendid projects, and heroic resolutions. They live in the region which the poet has described: —

“A pleasing land of drowsy-head it was, Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye, And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, For ever flushing round a summer’s sky.”

They have performed so many journeys and made so many discoveries, and won so many laurels in this aerial clime, that life is over, and they find their real work is not begun. Like the dreamer who is getting great sums of money in his sleep, and who, when he awakes, opens his till or his pocket-book almost expecting to find it full, the day-dreamer, the projector, awaking up at the close of life, can hardly believe that after his distinct and glorious visions, he is leaving the world no wiser, mankind no richer, and his own home no happier for all the golden prospects which have flitted through his busy brain. What a blessed world it were, how happy and how rich, if all the idlers were working, if all the workers were awake, and if all the projectors were practical men!

I trust, my readers, that many among you are desiroys to be active Christians. Perhaps the following hints may be helpful to those who wish to serve the Lord by diligence in business.

1. Have a calling in which it is worth while to be busy. There are many callings in which it is lawful for the Christian to “abide.” LHe may be a lawyer like Sir Matthew Hale, or a physician like Haller, Heberden, and Mason Goode. He may be a painter like West, or a sculptor like Bacon, or a poet like MiUon and Klopstock and Cowper. He may be a trader like Thornton and the Hardcastles, or a philosopher like Boyle and Boerhaave. He may be a hard-working artisan like the Yorkshire Blacksmith and the Watchmaker of Geneva; or he may toil for his daily bread like the Happy Waterman, and the Wallsend Miner, and the Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, and many a domestic servant of humble but pious memory. ] And the business of this ordinary calling, the disciple of Christ must discharge heartily, and with all his might. He must labour to be eminent and exemplary in his own profession. He should seek, for the sake of the gospel, to be first-rate in his own department. But over and above his ordinary calHng as a member of society, the believer has his special calling as a member of the church. He has a direct work to do in his Saviour’s service. Some have so much of their time at their own disposal, that they might almost make their calling as members of Christ’s church the business of their lives. And each who is in this privileged situation should consider what is the particular line of things for which his taste and talents most urgently predispose him, and for which his training and station best adapt him. The healthiest condition of the church is where there is a member for every office, and where every member fulfils his own office,* where there are no defects and no transpositions, but each is allowed to

* Rom. xii. 3 — 8. .^ ply to the utmost the work for which God has intended him; where Newton writes his letters, and Butler his Analogy; where, in the leisure of the olden ministry, Matthew Henry compiles his Commentary, and where, in the calm retreat of Olney, Cowper pours forth his devotional melodies; where Venn cultivates his corner of the vineyard, and Whitefield ranges over the field of the world; where President Edwards is locked up in his study, and Wilberforce is detained in the parlour; where the adventurous Carey goes down into the pit, and the sturdy arm of Fuller deals out the rope; where he who ministers, waits on his ministering, and he that teacheth on teaching, and he that exhorteth on exhortation, and he who hath to give gives liberally, and he who has method and good management rules dihgently, and he who can pay visits of mercy pays them cheerfully. And if the Lord has given you an abundance of unoccupied leisure, he has along with it given you some talent or other, and says, “Occupy till I come.” Find out what it is that you best can do, or what it is which, if you neglect it, is likely to be left undone. And whether you select as your sphere of Christian usefulness, a Sabbath class or a ragged school, a local prayer-meeting, or a district for domicihary visitation; whether you devote yourself to the interests of some evangelistic society, or labour secretly from house to house, whatever line of things you select, make it your “business.” Pursue it so earnestly, that though it were only in that one field of activity you would evince yourself no common Christian.

2. Make the most of time. Some have little leisure, but there are sundry expedients, any one of which, if fairly tried, would make that little leisure longer. (1.) Economy. Most of the men who have died enormously rich, acquired their wealth, not in huge windfalls, but by minute and careful accumulations. It was not one vast sum bequeathed to them after another, which overwhelmed them with inevitable opulence; but it was the loose money which most men would lavish away; the little sums which many would not deem worth looking after; the pennies and sixpences of which you would keep no reckoning, these are the items which, year by year piled up, have reared their pyramid of fortune. From these money-maicers let us learn the nobler “avarice of time.” One of the longest and most elaborate poems of recent times* was composed in the streets of London by a physician in busy practice during the brief snatches of time, when passing from one patient’s door to another. And in order to achieve some good work which you have much at heart, you may not be able to secure an entire week, or even an uninterrupted day. But try what you can make of the broken fragments of time. Glean up its golden dust; those filings and parings of precious duration, those leavings of days and remnants of hours which so many sweep out into the waste of existence. Perhaps, if you be a miser of moments, if you

* Good’s Trnnslaiion of Lucretius. A similar instance of literary industry is recorded of Dr. Burney, the musician. With the help of pocket grammars and dictionaries, which he had taken the trouble to write out for his own use, he acquired the French and Italian languages when riding on horseback from place to plnce to give h’s professional instructions.

be frugal and hoard up odd minutes and half-hours and unexpected holidays, your careful gleanings may eke out a long and useful life, and you may die at last richer in existence than multitudes whose time is all their own. The time which some men waste in superfluous slumber and idle visits and desultory application, were it all redeemed, would give them wealth of leisure, and enable them to execute undertakings for which they deem a less worried life than their’s essential. When a person says, “I have no time to pray, no time to read the Bible, no time to improve my mind nor do a kind turn to a neighbour,” he may be saying what he thinks, but he should not think what he says; for if he has not got the time already, he may get it by redeeming it. (2.) Punctuality. A singular mischance has occurred to some of our friends. At the instant when he ushered them on existence, God gave them a work to do, and he also gave them a competency of lime, so much time, that if they began at the right moment, and wrought with sufficient vigour, their time and their work would end together.

But a good many years ago a strange misfortune befel them. A fragment of their allotted time was lost. They cannot tell what became of it; but sure enough it has dropped out of existence; for just like two measuring-lines laid alongside, the one an inch shorter than the other, their work and their time run parallel, but the work is always ten minutes in advance of the time. They are not irregular. They are never too soon. Their letters are posted the very minute after the mail is shut; they arrive at the wharf just in time to see the steamboat off; they come in sight of the depot precisely when the train starts. They do not break any engagement nor neglect any duty; but they systematically go about it too late, and usually too late by about the same fatal interval. How can they retrieve the lost fragment, so essential to character and comfort? Perhaps by a device like this: suppose that on some auspicious morning they contrived to rise a quarter of an hour before their usual time, and were ready for their morning worship fifteen minutes sooner than they have been for the last ten years; or, what will equally answer the end, suppose that for once they merged their morning meal altogether, and went straight out to the engagements of the day; suppose that they arrived at the class-room, or the workshop, or the place of business, fifteen minutes before their usual time, or that they forced themselves to the appointed rendezvous on the week-day, or to the sanctuary on the Sabbath-day, a quarter of an hour before their instinctive time of going — all would yet be well. This system carried out would bring the world and themselves to synchronize; they and the marching hours would come to keep step again, and moving on in harmony, they would escape the jolting fatigue and awkwardness they used to feel, when old Father Time put the right foot foremost and they advanced the left; their reputation would be retrieved, and friends, who at present fret, would begin to smile; their fortunes would be made; their satisfaction in their work would be doubled; and their influence over others and their power for usefulness would be unspeakably augmented. (3.) Method. A man has got twenty or thirty letters and packets to carry to their fNDT’STRY. 41

several destinations; but instead of arranging them beforehand, and putting all addressed to the same locality in a separate parcel, he crams the whole into his promiscuous bag, and trudges off to the west, for he knows that he has got a letter directed thither; that letter he delivers, and hies away to the east, when lo! the same handful which brings out the invoice for Merchant’s Row contains a brief for the Court House, and a petition, which should have been left, had he noticed it earher, at the Capitol. Accordingly he retraces his steps and repairs the omission, and then performs a transit from the north to the south; till in two days he overtakes the work of one, and travels fifty miles to accomplish as much as a man of method would have managed in fifteen. The man who has thoroughly mastered that lesson, “A place for every thing, and every thing in its place,” will save a world of time. He loses no leisure seeking for the unanswered letter or the lost receipt; he does not need to travel the same road twice; and hence it is that some of the busiest men have the least of a busy look.

Instead of slamming doors and ringing alannbells, and knocking over chairs and children in their headlong hurry, they move about deliberately, for they have made their calculations, and know what time they can count upon. And just as a prodigal of large fortune is obliged to do shabby things, whilst an orderly man of moderate income has always an easy look, as if there were still something left in his pocket — as he can afford to pay for goods when he buys them., and to put something into the collecting-box when it passes him, and after he has discharged all his debts has still something to spare — so is it with the methodical husbanders and the disorderly spendthrifts of time. Those who live without a plan have never any leisure, for their work is never done: those who titne their engagements and arrange their work beforehand, can bear an occasional interruption. They can reserve an evening hour for their families; they can sometimes take a walk into the country, or drop in to see a friend; they can now and then contrive to read a useful book; and amidst all their important avocations, they have a tranquil and opulent appearance, £is if they still had plenty of time. (4.) Promptitude. Every scene of occupation is haunted by that “thief of time,’* procrastination; and all his ingenuity is directed to steal that best of opportunities, the present time. The disease of humanity, (disinclination to the work God has given,) more frequently takes the form of dilatoriness than a downright and decided refusal. But delay shortens life and abridges industry, just as promptitude enlarges both. You have a certain amount of work before you, and in all likelihood some unexpected engagements may be superadded as the time wears on. You may begin that work immediately, or you may postpone it till the evening, or till the week is closing, or till near the close of life. Your sense of duty insists on its being done; but procrastination says. “It will be pleasanter to do it by-and-by.” What infatuation! To end each day in a hurry, and life itself in a panic! And when the flurried evening has closed, and the fevered life is over, to leave half your work undone! Whatever the business be, do it instantly, if you would do it easily. Life will be long enough for the work assigned if you be prompt enough. Clear off arrears of neglected duty; and once the disheartening accumulations of the past are overtaken, let not that mountain of difficulty rise again. Prefer duty to diversion, and cultivate that athletic frame of soul which rejoices in abundant occupation; and you will soon find the sweetness of that repose which follows finished work, and the zest of that recreation in which no delinquent feeling mingles, and on which no neglected duty frowns.