Though it appear a
slowly-flowing stream, yet it undermines all that is stable and
flourishing. It not only saps the foundation of every virtue, but pours
upon you a deluge of crimes and evils.
It is like water which first putrefies by stagnation, and then sends up
noxious vapours and fills the atmosphere with death. Fly, therefore,
from idleness, as the certain parent both of guilt and of ruin. And
under idleness I include, not mere inaction only, but all that circle of
trifling occupations in which too many saunter away their youth;
perpetually engaged in frivolous society or public amusements, in the
labours of dress or the ostentation of their persons. Is this the
foundation which you lay for future usefulness and esteem? By such
accomplishments do you hope to recommend yourselves to the thinking part
of the world, and to answer the expectations of your friends and your
country? Amusements youth requires: it were vain, it were cruel, to
prohibit them. But, though allowable as the relaxation, they are most
culpable as the business, of the young, for they then become the gulf of
time and the poison of the mind; they weaken the manly powers; they sink
the native vigour of youth into contemptible effeminacy.
Pages:
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87