Dangers of Idleness by John Plowman

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 14, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 31.

Dangers of Idleness.

By John Plowman

A man who wastes his time and his strength in sloth offers himself to be a target for the devil, who is a wonderfully good rifleman, and will riddle the idler with his shots: in other words, idle men tempt the devil to tempt them. He who plays when he should work has an evil spirit to be his playmate; and he who neither works nor plays is a work-shop for Satan. If the devil catch a man idle, he will set him to work, find him tools, and before long pay him wages. Is not this where the drunkenness comes from which fills our towns and villages with misery? Idleness is the key of beggary, and the root of all evil. Fellows have two stomachs for eating and drinking when they have no stomach for work. We have God's word for it that "the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty;" and to show the connection between them, it is said in the same verse, "and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags." I know it as well as I know that moss grows on old thatch, that drunken, loose habits grow out of lazy hours. I like leisure when I can get it, but that is quite another thing; that's cheese and the other is chalk. Idle folks never know what leisure means; they are always in a hurry and a mess, and by neglecting to work in the proper time, they always have a lot to do. Lolling about hour after hour, with nothing to do, is just making holes in the hedge to let the pigs through, and they will come through and no mistake, and the rooting they will do nobody knows but those who have to look after the garden. The Lord Jesus tells us himself that when men slept, the enemy sowed the tares; and that hits the nail on the head, for it is by the door of sluggishness that evil enters the heart more often, it seems to me, than by any other. Our old minister used to say, "A sluggard is fine raw material for the devil; he can make anything he likes out of him, from a thief up to a murderer."

I'm not the only one that condemns the idle, for once, when I was going to give our minister a pretty long list of the sins of one of our people that he was asking after, I began with "He's dreadfully lazy." "That's enough," said the old gentleman; "all sorts of sins are in that one; that's the sign by which to know a full-fledged sinner."—John Plowman.