Economical Use of Time by E. Nelson

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 3, 1871

Economical Use of Time.

By E. Nelson

An idle person, or one that lives to please himself, cannot cast an influence for good in any cause. There are some who have families wholly dependent on their labor for support, who suffer great privations, if labor is not economized. For a man to fail to so economize, would be to neglect to provide for those of his own house; and St. Paul says of such an one, “He hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.” 1 Tim. 5:8. Certainly, such cannot keep the fourth commandment, nor be numbered with those described in the first five verses of Rev. 14, who will stand without fault before the throne of God.

There are many ways that men (professing love for the truth) take to spend their time to little or no profit, thus neglecting the claims of the cause they profess to love, and the care of the families for whose existence they are responsible.

Perhaps there is no habit that leads more directly to poverty, want, and woe, than that of hunting; nor is there any idol clung to with greater tenacity than the gun. Those that make hunting profitable are very few; and if it were profitable, we doubt whether the chasing of game, or the pursuit of hunting, is favorable to a growth in grace. But there are many who spend much of their time hunting to no profit, either temporal or spiritual; and how can a person be justified in leaving his family destitute, day after day, to hunt for game, when past experience must teach him that it will not yield him a comfortable living?

And it certainly is very unconsoling to the wife and mother as she cares for her little ones at home, to think that her husband seldom gets even the “rabbit skin” of the old cradle song, or anything else wherewith to clothe or nourish his family; but oftener comes home at night, faint, as did Esau from his hunt, ready to sell his birthright, or any other right, for something to eat.

And while he partakes of the scanty fare, he will revive hope by relating how he almost got something; and if it had not been for this or that, he would perhaps have shot a deer.

Thus consoled, after eating and sleeping, he is ready to renew the chase the next day.

Should you presume to offer such persons a bushel of corn per day for their labor, they would feel insulted; when they know that they work harder for less pay.

With regard to making an idol of a gun, I have myself had an experience. When a boy, if I saw a gun, I looked upon it as a pearl of great price, and would readily sell all I had to buy it.

I was more successful than some, but could never make hunting profitable; and I believe if I had spent my time according to the dictates of my conscience, I should now have wherewith to help the cause of truth. I say conscience, because I never started on a hunt without feeling that I ought to be doing something better.

In view of my own experience, I pity the boy who is so smitten with the gun as to allow it to absorb all his thoughts and time; and I would say to such, Break away from this infatuation as an enemy to your present and eternal good.

E. NELSON.

Gratiot Co., Mich.