Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1859-07-30

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No truly Christian man can be truly an in
dolent man. He must necessarily have es-
tablished, legitimate channels of method-
cal, vital expenditure, or his Christianity
will be very weak affair There is really
nothing left to a genuine idle man, who
possesses any considerable degree of vital
power, but sin. A man who has nothing
to do is the devils play-fellow. lie has
no choice in the matter. lie can find no
sympathy anywhere else. Good men find
nothing in him congenial Industrious men
have no time to devote TO him, and would
have no sympathy with him if they had
All the decent world is in league against
an idle man. Everybody despises him.
whether he be rich or poor Everybody
feels that he is a uuisance-a sneak, who
refuses to employ the powers with which
he has been endowed, and declines to con-
tribute his quota to the support of the race.
He is driven by the very necessity of po-
sition into secret or open vice, and be finds
in obedience to the calls of temptation the
only delights that season an otherwise
insipid life.
IdeDess is the sepulcher of living man.
A man whose will refuses to direct the vi
talty within him into regular channels of
labor-who simply feeds and sleeps, or
nurses his passions and his appetites-
whose highest satisfaction comes from sense
lis as good as dead and buried. OF what
use is such man in the world, to himself
CT Others If he will not work, he is q
burden npon society, even if he prey upon
n pile of inherited wealth. That wealth, if
he were out Of the way, would pass into
better hands and the world has need of
it for its workers. No man has right to
be idle if he can get work to do, even if
he be as rich as Cresus, simply because he
cannot be an idle man without injury to
himself and to society. He destroys his
own happiness, buries his powers of useful
ness, and furnishes to the world pestilent
example.
If any rich young man reads these words
| have something of Importance to say to
him. Your father, either by business en-
terprse or family inheritance is rich. You
know the amount of his wealth, and you
know there is enough of it to support you
while you live, without labor. Here is a
great temptation AS have said before,
humanity is constutionally lazy and when
you see how severely the prizes of life are
to be struggled for, you naturally shrink
from the sharp, and what seems to be, the
unnecessary, competition. There is, also,
perhaps, in your mind, prejudice agai nst
labor. 1t may not appear to you a very
genteel thing to tie yourself to a daily
round of duties. You like to be indepen-
dent, and to show that you are So Now
be very careful here, or you will make the
great mistake of your life-a mistake which
some day you will be willing to give all
your wealth to recall / know that you
cannot be happy without fulfilling the end
of your being, and so do you. | know that
you cannot fulfill the end of your being
without the thorough development of your
powers by the regular, systematic expendi-
ture of your vitality in labor. l know
that unless you do this, time will be left
upon your hands to be dreamed away alone,
or inflicted as a bore upon Others who have
something to do, or to be filled up by min
istry to appettes which will degrade you.
So | say to you, never dream for a moment,
of life of idleness. Such life will curse
you and injure Others Such life is un-
manly as it is ungodly 1t has no redeem
ing feature and no apology. Have pro-
fession, or a calling, of some kind, which
shall make a regular tax upon your powers.
Only in this way can you be reasonably
safe from low temptations, acquire selfre-
spect, secure the esteem of men, and place
yourself in sympathy with this working
world.
know that there are mauy who are
obliged to work too hard-whose vitality
is taxed beyond the point of the organs
and facuti by which it is expended
While this fact is partly owing to the wants,
it might be greatly modified by more uni
versal adoption of the habit of labor
The burdens of the world are unequally
borne. A great multitude live without
labor tney are drones in the hive. A
still greater multitude live by their wits
and over all this country--never more than
at the present time-is there disposition
to.gaiu wealth out of theregular channels Of
business The real English" of this mode
of acquiring wealth is to get it without
earning it-a way legally gaining posses
sion Of what Others have earned by the
sweat of their brows. Nearly all the pop
ular modes and means of speculation are
modes and means of legal gambling Now
not a dollar is produced in the world that
is not either taken from the ground, or
pulled from the sea by somebody and it
is a shameful fact that the popular means
of winning wealth contemplate its acqui-
sition without particle Of labor bestowed
upon its production. do not believe that
wealth won in this way is the right way
There is legitimate business of media
ton between producers and consumers, and
legitimate line of service to both, but
further than this all those who seek for
wealth without adding a grain to the gen.
eral stock are leeches, sponges, nuisances.
There is a more honorable way. There
are legitimate offices to the world for which
the world will pay we'll and, in one of
these, at least, every man should have a
place, and there do the work of his life.
winning competence as he will, and wealth
if he may. Wealth legitimately acquired
is valuable, and it is only valuable when
thus acquired Honest labor for the world
is the only true basis Of wealth, and the
grand prerequisite for its enjoyment.
| have said that everybody looks forward to