The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1900-03-16
you give up your employment and con-
WHAT DOES HE DO?

WHAT DOES HE Do?
These hlers you will find standing
| around the engine houses or standing
at monday or about noon on the steps
Of some hotel or fashionable restau-
rant, giving the idea they have dined
there. They have not dined there.
They never will dine there. Before
you invite a u man into your as
ISOLATION ask him plainly, What do
you do for a living?" If he avs
Nothing; L am a gentleman" look
u for him. / care not how soft his
and or how elegant his apparel or
20 high sounding his family name.
his touch is death.
These people who have nothing to do
will com round o in your busy
hours, and they will ask you TO ride
with them to Chevy Chase or to EN-
trail park, and they will tell you of
some excursion that you must make,
of some wine that you must drink, OF
some beautiful dancer that you must
see. They will try to take o away
from your regular work Associate
with these men, and, first OF all, you
will become ashamed of your apparel;
then you will lose your place, then you
will lose you responsibility, then you
will lose your soul
Idleness is the next door to villainy.
When the police go to ind criminals,
where do they go to find them? They
find them among the idle-those who
nave nothing to do, or, having some
thing to do, refuse to engage in their
daily work. Some one came TO good old
Ashbel Green and asked him why he
worked at so years Of age when it was
time for him to rest. "Oh," he replied,
II work to keep out Of mischief"
And no man can afford to be idle. /
care not how strong his moral charac-
ter, he cannot afford to be idle.
But you say "A great many people
I are Gnffprin0 from enforced i6lpnpSS
During the hard times there were a
great many people out Of employ
ment." 1 know it, but the times of
dullness in business are the times when
men ought to be thoroughly engaged
in improving their minds and enlarg-
ing their hearts. The fortunes to be
made 20 years from now will be made
by the young men who in the times
when business was dull cultivated
their minds and improved their hearts.
They will get the fortunes after awhile
while those men who hang around their
stores, never engaging in any useful
occupation, will be as poor hen as they
are now. 1t is absur for a Christian
man to say he has nothing to do.
I went into a store in New York
where there were five Christian men,
and they said they had nothing to do.
The whole world lying in sin. Power
ty to be comforted, sickness to be al
leviated a Bible in the back office,
CNOly II Utility VI eli
every inducement to work, yet a Chris
tian man, swore before high HEAVIER to
consecrate his whole life to usefulness,
a nothing to do! If you have not
n business for this world, my Chris
tan friend, then you ought to be do
ing business for eternity.
PICTURE OF A GREAT MASTER.
and to Rome to see one of the works
of the great masters. I think I can
show you the picture of one of the
great masters. 90" went by the field
of the slothful and by the vineyard of
the man void of understanding, and,
10, it was all grown over with thorns,
and nettleS had covered the face there
Of, and the stone wall thereof was
broken down.. Then I saw and con-
sidered it we'll. I looked upon it and
a little slumber, a little folding of the
hands to sleep. So shall thy poverty
come as one that traveleth and thy
want as an armed man." There is no
more explosive passage in all Bible
than that. 1t first begins to hiss like
the fuse of a canno and then bursts
like a 81 FOUNDER. The old proverb
was true, "The devil tempts most men,
but idlers tempt the devil!" Therefore
seek something to do. If no worldly
the Lord Jesus Christ, go out on Chris
tian toll, and the Lord will you. and the
Lord will help you.
Again / counsel you, avoid the
pleasure seeker, the man whose entire
business it is to seek for reaction and
amusement. 1 believe in the amuse-
mentS of the world so far as they are
innocent. / could not live without
them. Any man of sanguine tempera-
ment must lave recreation or die.
And yet the amusements and recrea-
tions of life must administer to hard
rynr1 Hnnnxr oro @~1- raDo i-@ f0~
the occupation to which God has
called us.
God would not have given us the ca
pacity to laugh if he did not sometimes
intend us to indulge it. God hath hung
in the sky and set in wave and printed
on grass many a r~oundelay. But all
the music and the brightness of the
natural world were merely intended to
fit us for the earnest work of life. The
thundercloud has edges exquisitely
purpled, but it jars the mountain as it
says, 81 come down to water the
fields" The flowers standing under
the fence look gay n beautiful, but
they say, w stand here to refresh
the husbandmen at the morning" The
brook frolics and sparkles and foams
but it says: Il go to baptize the moss;
I go to Stake the thirst of the bird; l
turn the wheel of the mill; in my crys-
tai cradle 1 rock muckshaw and water
lily; I play, but I work"
Look out for the man who plays and
never works. Look out for that man
whose entire business is to play ball Or
sail a yacht or engage in any kin of
merriment. These things are all beau
tiful and grand in their places, but
when they become the chief work of
life they become a mans destruction.
George Brummel was admired of all
England. He danced with peeresses
and went a round of mirth and folly,
until after awhile, exhausted of purse,
ruined of reputation blasted of soul,
he begged a crust from a grocer, de-
claring as his deliberate opinion hat
he thought that a dogs life was bet
ter than a mans.
BEWARE OF PLEASURE SEEKERS
These mere ~pleasurists will come
aroun you while you re engaged in
your work, n they will try to take
You away. They lave lost their places
Why not you lose your place? Then