To no purpose are they endowed with the best abilities, if
they want activity for exerting them. Unavailing, in this case, will be
every direction that can be given them, either for their temporal or
spiritual welfare. In youth the habits of industry are most easily
acquired; in youth the incentives to it are strong, from ambition and
from duty, from emulation and hope, from all the prospects which the
beginning of life affords. If, dead to these calls, you already languish
in slothful inaction, what will be able to quicken the more sluggish
current of advancing years? Industry is not only the instrument of
improvement, but the foundation of pleasure. Nothing is so opposite to
the true enjoyment of life as the relaxed and feeble state of an
indolent mind. He who is a stranger to industry, may possess, but he
cannot enjoy. For it is labour only which gives the relish to pleasure.
It is the appointed vehicle of every good man. It is the indispensable
condition of our possessing a sound mind in a sound body. Sloth is so
inconsistent with both, that it is hard to determine whether it be a
greater foe to virtue or to health and happiness. Inactive as it is in
itself, its effects are fatally powerful.
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