Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1892-04-30
ACCOMAC G. II. VA. SATURDAY. APRIL 80, 1892

until the employers become Disguised
and the man is given up to continue.
and rnnous idleness.. When that point
has arrived he rushes to destruction with
astonishing velocity. When man with
wrong proclivities hasonothing to do, NJ
former self respect or moral restraint Of
the .beseechings of kindred can save him
The only safety for man who feels
himself under the fascination of amy
form of temptation is an employment
which affords neither recreation MOI
holiday. Nothing can be more unfortu
Fate for q man of evil inclination thar
all occupation which keeps him exceed
ingly busy during a part of the year and
then leaves him for weeks and months
entirely unemployed. There are many
men who c;innot endure protracted
leisure. They arc like. fractions steeds
that must constantly DO kept to the load
for weeks quiet makes them intract
able and uncontrollable.s. Bad habits
produce idleness anG idleness produce.
bad habits.
The probability is that; you will eithol
have to give mp your loose indulgenccs
or else give up your occupation. Sir
will take all enthusiasm out of your worl
and make you sick of life's drudgery
and though now and then between your
seasons of dissipation, you may rouse uI
to sudden activity and start again il
the chase of some high and noble end,
even though you catch the game, you
will sink back into slothfulness before
you have roasted that which you took
in hunting. Bad habits unfit u man fol
everything but politics
Now, what are tho results of indo-
lence2 A marked consequence of this
vice is physical disease. The health
ness of the whole natural world depends
upon activity. The winds, tossed and
driven in endless circuits, scattering the
mists from the mountains, and scooping
out death damps from the caves, and
blasting the ,niasma of swamps, and
hurting back the fetid atmosphere Of
great cities, are healthy just because CT
their swiftness and Observation-Disclosures
of sweep. But after awhile the wind
falls, and the hot sun pours through it,
and when tho leaves are still, and the
grain fields bend not once all day long,
then pestilcnce smites its victims and
digs trenches for tho dead.
The fountain, born far up in the Wild
wood Of the mountain, comes down
bright for every obstacle against which
it is riven, and singing a new song on
every shelf of rock over which it bounds,
till it rolls over the water wheels in the
valley; not ashamed to grind corn, and
runs through the long grass Of the
meadow, where tho willows reach down
to dip their branches and the unyoked
oxen come at eventidc to COOL, Healthy
water! Bright watorl Happy waterl
While some stream, too lazy any moro
torun, gathers itself into wayside pool
where the swine wAllow, and filthy in
sects hop over the surface, and reptiles
crawl among the ooze, and frogs utter
their hideous croak. and by day and
night there rises from the foul lnire and
green scum fever and plague and death.
There is an endless activity llnderfoot
and overhead.
Not one four o'clock in the flower bed,
not one fly on the window pane, not one
Squirrel gathering food from the cones
of the white pine, not one rabbit feeding
on clover tops, not one drop falling in a
shower, not one minnow CHANGING i'll the
sea, not one quail whistling from the
grass, not one hawk cawing i'll the sky,
but is busy now and is busy always, full
filing its mission rs certainly as any
monarch on Garth OF any angel in heaven.
NATURE NEVER IDLE.
You hear the shout of the plowboys
busy i'll the field and the rattle of the
whifletrees on the harrow, but you do
not know that there is more industry il
the earth upturned and in the dumb
vegetation underfoot than in all that
you see. If you put your ear to a lump
of riven sod you may hear nothing in
the roots and spicula of grass, but there
are at work spades and cleavers and pile
drivers and gathering rams and inter
nccine wars. L do not wonder that the
lively fancy of the ancients saw in the
inanimate creation around Floras and
Pomonas and Graces and Fauns and
Fairies and Satyrs and Nymphs. Every
thing is busy. Nothing is ina-imate,
except the man who cannot SEQ the life
and hear the music.
At the creation the morning stars sang
together, but they were only the choir
which was 10 lead all the stars, and all
the mountains, and all the seas in Gods
worship. All natural objects seem at
one and the same time uniting i'll work
and Joy and worship. In Gods creation
there is no pause in either the worship,
or the work, or the JOY. Amid all nat
ural objects at one and the same time it
is Halloween and Whitsunday and Ash
Wednesday and All Saints Day. All
the healthy beauty of that which we see
and hear in the natural world is ;iepeld-
ent upon activity and unrest. Men
will be hcalehy-intellcctually, morally
AMI physically-only upon the condition
of all active industry. / know men-die
every day of ovcrwork. They drop
dow in coat pits. and among the spindles
of northern factories, and on the cotton
plantations of the south.
In every city and town and village you
find men grooming under burdens, as in
the east the calnels stagger under their
loads between Aleppo and Damascus.
Life is crushed out every day at counters
and workbenches and anvil. But there
are other multitudes who die from nero
inertia. Indulgences every day nre con-
tracing diseases beyond the catholicon
Of allopathy and homeopathy and hy-
dropathy and eclecticisln. Rather than
work they rush rpon lancets and seal
pels. Nature has provided fox those who
violate her laws by inactvity-what
rhenm for the eyes. and what govt for