Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1892-04-25

| minute" My advice is not TO wait at
| ALL
SINFUL INDULGENCE AND IDLENEss.
Again, bad habits are a fruitful sollrce
of Incidence. Sinful indulgences shut a
mans shop and dull his tools and steal
his profits. Dissoluteness is generally
the end of industry. There are those
who have the rare faculty of devoting
occasionally q day or a week to loose in
dulgences, and at the expiration Of that
time so back with bleared eyes and
trelnulcas hands and boated cheeks to
| the f..ie,2ful and successful performance
! Ct 1,zci1. la5ics Indeed, their employ
CTS and le.ghbors expect this amuse-
met o occasional season OF frolic and
NJ; s,..l.
Gc-le c. the best workmen and most
sLIIifl.l l1',i1azls have this mode OF con
Quoting themselves, but, as the tinu3
rolls on, the season of dissipation be-
comes more protracted and the season
of steadiness and sobriety more limited,
until the employers become Disguised
and the man is given up to o continual
and ruinous idleness. When that point
has arrived he rushes to destruction with
astonishing velocity. When q man with
wrong proclivities has nothing to do, no
former self respect or moral restraint or
the beseechings Of kindred can save him.
The only safety for a man who feels
himself under the fascination OF any
form of temptation is an employment
which affords neither recreation nor
holiday. Nothing can be more unfortu-
nate for a man of evil inclination than
an occupation which keeps him exceed
ingly busy during part Of the year and
then leaves him for weeks and months
entirely unemployed. There are many
men who cannot endure protracted
leisure. They are like fractions steeds
that must constantly be kept to the load,
for weeks quiet makes them intract-
able and uncomfortable. Bad habits
produce idleness and idleness produces
bad habits.
The probability is that you will either
have to give up your loose indulgences
or else give up your occupation. Sin
will take all enthusiasm out of your work
and make you sick of life's drudgery,
and though now and then between your
seasons Of dissipation, you may rouse up
to a sudden activity and start again in
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 a man for
everything but politics.
Now, what are the results of indo-
lence? a marked consequence Of this
vice is physical disease. The health
ness OF the whole natural world depends
upon activity. The winds, tossed and
mists from the mountains, and scooping
out death damps from the caves, and
blasting the miasIna of swamps, and
hurting back the fetid atmosphere of
great cities, are healthy just because of
their swiftness and Observation-Disclosures
Of sweep. But after awhile the wind
falls, and the hot sun pours through it,
and when the leaves are still, and the
grain fields bend not once all day long,
then pestilence smites its victims and
digs trenches for the 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 the willows reach down
to dip their branches and the unyoked
oxen come at eventidc to cool. Healthy
water. Bright water Happy water!
While some stream too lazy any more
torun, gathers itself into q 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 mire and |
green scum fever and plague and DEATH
There is an endless activity underfoot |
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
shower, not one minnow glancing in the
sea, not one quail whistling from the
grass, not one hawk cawing in the sky,
but is busy now and is busy always, full
filing its MISSION as certainly as any
monarch on earth OF any angelin heaven.
NATURE NEVER IDLE.
You hear the shout of the plowboys
busy in the field and the rattle of the
whifietrees on the harrow, but you do
not know that there is more industry in
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 battering rams and inter-
necine wars. [ do not wonder that the
e., ,1ffI 10 o+, no
inanimate creation around Floras and
Pomonas and Graces and Fauns and
Fairies and Satyrs and Nymphs. Every