Grand River times. [volume] (Grand Haven, Mich.) 1851-18??, 1851-07-30
INCIDENCE.


their bread and not his own. His carlessness
is somebody's loss; his neglect is somebody's
downfall; his promises are perpetual stumb-
ling block to all who trust them. If he bor-
rows the article remains borrowed; If he begs
and gets, it is the letting out of waters-no one
knows when it will stop. He spoilsyour work;
disappoints your expectations; exhausts your
patience; eats up your substance; abuses your
confidence and hangs dead weight upon all
your plans; and the very best thing an honest
man can do with lazy man is to get rid OF
him. Solomon says: STRAY fool with a
pestle, in mortar with wheat, yet will not his
folly depart from him." He does not mention
what kind Of fool he meant; but as he speaks
of q fool by pre-eminence, take it for granted
he meant lazy man and / am more inclined
to the opinion from the expression of his ex-
perience GAS vinegar to the teeth, and smoke
to the eyes, so is the sluggard to them that send
him.
Incidence is great spendthrift. An indo-
lently inclined young man, can neither make nor
keep property. have high authority for this
He that is slothful in his work, is brother to
him that is great waster."
When satan would put ordinary men to a crop
of mischief like wise husbandman he clears
finds the idle man already prepared, and he has
scarcely the trouble of sowing, for vices, like
weeds, ask little strewing, except what the
wind gives their ripe and winged seeds, shak-
ing and scattering them all abroad. Indeed, la
zy men may fifty be likened to tropical prai-
RE over which the wind of temptation perpet-
ually blows, drifting every vagrant seed from
hedge and hill, and which-without moments
rest through the whole year-waves its rank
harvest of luxuriant weeds.
First, the imagination will be haunted with
unlawful visitants. Upon the outskirts of the
towns are shattered houses, abandoned by rep
utabe persons. They are not empty, because
all the day silent; thieves vagabonds and vii
lains haunt them, in joint possession with rats,
bats and vermin. Such are idle mems imagi-
nations-full Of unlawful company.
The Imagination is closely related to the pas
sions, and fires them with its heat. The day
dreams of indolent youth, glow each hour with
warmer colors, and holder adventures. The
imagination fashions scenes of enchantment, in
which the passions revel and it leads them out
in shadow at first, to deeds which soon they
will seek in earnest The brilliant colors of
far-away clouds, are but the colors of the storm ;
the salacious day-dreams of indolent men rosy
at first and distant, deepen every day, darker and
darker, to the color of actual evil. Then fol-
lows the blight ofevery habit. Incidence prom
Uses without redeeming the pledge; mist of
forgetfulness rises up and obscures the memo
ry of vows and oaths. The negligence of la
illness breeds more falsehoods than the cunning
of the sharper. As poverty waits upon the
steps of Incidence, so upon such poverty, brood
equivocations, subterfuges, lying denials.-
Falsehood becomes the instrument of every
plan. Negligence Of truth, next occasional
falsehood, then wanton mendacity-these three
strides traverse the whole road Of lies.
Incidence as surely runs to dishonesty, as to
lying. Indeed, they are but different parts of
the same road, and not far apart. In directing
the conduct of the Ephesian converts, Paul
says: "Let him that stole, steal no more, but
rather let him labor, working with his hands the
thing which is good" The men who were
thieves, were those who had ceased to work.
Industry was the road back to honesty. When
stores are broken open, the idle are first sus-
pected. The desperate forgeries and swindlings
Of past years have taught men, upon their oc-
currence, to ferret their authors among the I'M
employed, or among those vanly occupied in
vicious pleasures.
The terrible passion for stealing rarely grows
upon the young, except through the necessities
of their idle pleasures Business is first neg
lected for amusement, and amusement soon be-
comes the only business. The appetite for vi
cious pleasure outruns the means of procuring
it. The theater, the circus, the card-table, the
midnight carouse, demand money. When scan-
ty earnings are gone, the young man pliers
from the till. First, because he hopes to repay
and next, because he despairs of paying-for
the disgrace of stealing ten dollars or thous-
and will be the same, but not their respective
pleasures Next, he will gamble, since it is
only another form of stealing. Gradually ex-
cluded from reputable society, the vagrant takes
all the badges of vice, and is familiar with her
paths; and, through them enters the broad road
of crime Society precipitates its lazy men,
bers, as water does its filth; and they form at
the bottom, pestilent sediment, stirred up by
every breeze Of evil, into riots, robberies and
murders. Into it drains all the filth, and out of
it, as from a morass, flow all the streams of
pollution. Brutal wretches, desperately haun-
ted by the law, crawling in human filth, brood
here their villain schemes, and plot mischief to
man. Hither resorts the truculent demagogue
to stir up the fntid filth against his adversaries
or to bring up mobs out of the sea, which can.
not rest, but cast up mire and dirt.
The results Of Incidence upon communities
are as marked as upon individuals. In a town
ofindustrious people the streets would be clean
houses neat and comfortable fences in repair