Says George S. Hilliard:
The ruin of most men dates from some vacant hour. Occupation
is the armor of the soul, and the train of idleness is borne
up by all the vices. I remember a satirical poem in which the
devil is represented as fishing for men and adapting his bait to
the taste and temperament of his prey; but the idler, he said,
pleased him most, because he bit the naked hook.
(1486)
* * * * *
Killing time? I would as soon think of cutting an angel’s
throat that I met on God’s highway, coming straight from His
throne. Pleasure-mongering! Somebody to entertain them! As if
life were a cheese and men were maggots boring in it! Are there
not thousands of foreigners asking to be taught? Are not the
Spaniards knocking at our door, asking us to organize for them
a school of morals, a Bible school, a school of religion, a
school of patriotism, on Sunday afternoon? Are there not social
settlements that ask for hundreds of workers and teachers? How
would it look if a regiment of soldiers at a critical moment
at Gettysburg had sat down on the grass and looked for a cool
tree and paid some man to come in with a jew’s-harp and play to
them, while the struggle for liberty went on? (Text.)--N. D.
HILLIS.
(1487)
=Idol-worship=--See FETISHISM.
=Idols Destroyed=--See RENUNCIATION, COMPLETE.