DILIGENCE AND APPLICATION IN BUSINESS
Solomon was certainly a friend to men of business, as it appears by his
frequent good advice to them. In Prov. xviii. 9, he says, 'He that is
slothful in business, is brother to him that is a great waster:' and in
another place, 'The sluggard shall be clothed in rags,' (Prov. xxiii.
1), or to that purpose. On the contrary, the same wise man, by way of
encouragement, tells them, 'The diligent hand maketh rich,' (Prov. x.
4), and, 'The diligent shall bear rule, but the slothful shall be under
tribute.'
Nothing can give a greater prospect of thriving to a young tradesman,
than his own diligence; it fills himself with hope, and gives him credit
with all who know him; without application, nothing in this world goes
forward as it should do: let the man have the most perfect knowledge of
his trade, and the best situation for his shop, yet without application
nothing will go on. What is the shop without the master? what the books
without the book-keeper? what the credit without the man? Hark how the
people talk of such conduct as the slothful negligent trader discovers
in his way.
'Such a shop,' says the customer, 'stands well, and there is a good
stock of goods in it, but there is nobody to serve but a 'prentice-boy
or two, and an idle journeyman: one finds them always at play together,
rather than looking out for customers; and when you come to buy, they
look as if they did not care whether they showed you any thing or no.
One never sees a master in the shop, if we go twenty times, nor anything
that bears the face of authority. Then, it is a shop always exposed, it
is perfectly haunted with thieves and shop-lifters; they see nobody but
raw boys in it, that mind nothing, and the diligent devils never fail to
haunt them, so that there are more outcries of 'Stop thief!' at their
door, and more constables fetched to that shop, than to all the shops in
the row. There was a brave trade at that shop in Mr--'s time: he was a
true shopkeeper; like the quack doctor, you never missed him from seven
in the morning till twelve, and from two till nine at night, and he
throve accordingly--he left a good estate behind him. But I don't know
what these people are; they say there are two partners of them, but
there had as good be none, for they are never at home, nor in their
shop: one wears a long wig and a sword, I hear, and you see him often
in the Mall and at court, but very seldom in his shop, or waiting on his
customers; and the other, they say, lies a-bed till eleven o'clock every
day, just comes into the shop and shows himself, then stalks about to
the tavern to take a whet, then to Child's coffee-house to hear the
news, comes home to dinner at one, takes a long sleep in his chair after
it, and about four o'clock comes into the shop for half an hour, or
thereabouts, then to the tavern, where he stays till two in the morning,
gets drunk, and is led home by the watch, and so lies till eleven again;
and thus he walks round like the hand of a dial. And what will it all
come to?--they'll certainly break, that you may be sure of; they can't
hold it long.'
'This is the town's way of talking, where they see an example of it in
the manner as is described; nor are the inferences unjust, any more than
the description is unlike, for such certainly is the end of such
management, and no shop thus neglected ever made a tradesman rich.
On the contrary, customers love to see the master's face in the shop,
and to go to a shop where they are sure to find him at home. When he
does not sell, or cannot take the price offered, yet the customers are
not disobliged, and if they do not deal now, they may another time: if
they do deal, the master generally gets a better price for his goods
than a servant can, besides that he gives better content; and yet the
customers always think they buy cheaper of the master too.
I seem to be talking now of the mercer or draper, as if my discourse
were wholly bent and directed to them; but it is quite contrary, for it
concerns every tradesman--the advice is general, and every tradesman
claims a share in it; the nature of trade requires it. It is an old
Anglicism, 'Such a man drives a trade;' the allusion is to a carter,
that with his voice, his hands, his whip, and his constant attendance,
keeps the team always going, helps himself, lifts at the wheel in every
slough, doubles his application upon every difficulty, and, in a word,
to complete the simile, if he is not always with his horses, either the
wagon is set in a hole, or the team stands still, or, which is worst of
all, the load is spoiled by the waggon overthrowing.
It is therefore no improper speech to say, such a man drives his trade;
for, in short, if trade is not driven, it will not go.
Trade is like a hand-mill, it must always be turned about by the
diligent hand of the master; or, if you will, like the pump-house at
Amsterdam, where they put offenders in for petty matters, especially
beggars; if they will work and keep pumping, they sit well, and dry and
safe, and if they work very hard one hour or two, they may rest,
perhaps, a quarter of an hour afterwards; but if they oversleep
themselves, or grow lazy, the water comes in upon them and wets them,
and they have no dry place to stand in, much less to sit down in; and,
in short, if they continue obstinately idle, they must sink; so that it
is nothing but _pump_ or _drown_, and they may choose which they like
best.
He that engages in trade, and does not resolve to work at it, is _felo
de se_; it is downright murdering himself; that is to say, in his
trading capacity, he murders his credit, he murders his stock, and he
starves, which is as bad as murdering, his family.
Trade must not be entered into as a thing of light concern; it is called
business very properly, for it is a business _for_ life, and ought to be
followed as one of the great businesses _of_ life--I do not say the
chief, but one of the great businesses of life it certainly is--trade
must, I say, be worked at, not played with; he that trades in jest, will
certainly break in earnest; and this is one reason indeed why so many
tradesmen come to so hasty a conclusion of their affairs.
There was another old English saying to this purpose, which shows how
much our old fathers were sensible of the duty of a shopkeeper: speaking
of the tradesman as just opening his shop, and beginning a dialogue with
it; the result of which is, that the shop replies to the tradesman thus:
'Keep me, and I will keep thee.' It is the same with driving the trade;
if the shopkeeper will not keep, that is, diligently attend to his shop,
the shop will not keep, that is, maintain him: and in the other sense it
is harsher to him, if he will not drive his trade, the trade will drive
him; that is, drive him out of the shop, drive him away.
All these old sayings have this monitory substance in them; namely, they
all concur to fill a young tradesman with true notions of what he is
going about; and that the undertaking of a trade is not a sport or game,
in which he is to meet with diversions only, and entertainment, and not
to be in the least troubled or disturbed: trade is a daily employment,
and must be followed as such, with the full attention of the mind, and
full attendance of the person; nothing but what are to be called the
necessary duties of life are to intervene; and even these are to be
limited so as not to be prejudicial to business.
And now I am speaking of the necessary things which may intervene, and
which may divide the time with our business or trade, I shall state the
manner in a few words, that the tradesman may neither give too much, nor
take away too much, to or from any respective part of what may be called
his proper employment, but keep as due a balance of his time as he
should of his books or cash.
The life of man is, or should be, a measure of allotted time; as his
time is measured out to him, so the measure is limited, must end, and
the end of it is appointed.
The purposes for which time is given, and life bestowed, are very
momentous; no time is given uselessly, and for nothing; time is no more
to be unemployed, than it is to be ill employed. Three things are
chiefly before us in the appointment of our time: 1. Necessaries of
nature. 2. Duties of religion, or things relating to a future life. 3.
Duties of the present life, namely, business and calling.
I. Necessities of nature, such as eating and drinking; rest, or sleep;
and in case of disease, a recess from business; all which have two
limitations on them, and no more; namely, that they be
1. Referred to their proper seasons.
2. Used with moderation.
Both these might give me subject to write many letters upon; but I study
brevity, and desire rather to hint than dwell upon things which are
serious and grave, because I would not tire you.
II. Duties of religion: these may be called necessities too in their
kind, and that of the sublimest nature; and they ought not to be thrust
at all out of their place, and yet they ought to be kept in their place
too.
III. Duties of life, that is to say, business, or employment, or
calling, which are divided into three kinds:
1. Labour, or servitude.
2. Employment.
3. Trade.
By labour, I mean the poor manualist, whom we properly call the
labouring man, who works for himself indeed in one respect, but
sometimes serves and works for wages, as a servant, or workman.
By employment, I mean men in business, which yet is not properly called
trade, such as lawyers, physicians, surgeons, scriveners, clerks,
secretaries, and such like: and
By trade I mean merchants and inland-traders, such as are already
described in the introduction to this work.
To speak of time, it is divided among these; even in them all there is a
just equality of circumstances to be preserved, and as diligence is
required in one, and necessity to be obeyed in another, so duty is to be
observed in the third; and yet all these with such a due regard to one
another, as that one duty may not jostle out another; and every thing
going on with an equality and just regard to the nature of the thing,
the tradesman may go on with a glad heart and a quiet conscience.
This article is very nice, as I intend to speak to it; and it is a
dangerous thing indeed to speak to, lest young tradesmen, treading on
the brink of duty on one side, and duty on the other side, should
pretend to neglect their duty to heaven, on pretence that I say they
must not neglect their shops. But let them do me justice, and they will
do themselves no injury; nor do I fear that my arguing on this point
should give them any just cause to go wrong; if they will go wrong, and
plead my argument for their excuse, it must be by their abusing my
directions, and taking them in pieces, misplacing the words, and
disjointing the sense, and by the same method they may make blasphemy
of the Scripture.
The duties of life, I say, must not interfere with one another, must not
jostle one another out of the place, or so break in as to be prejudicial
to one another. It is certainly the duty of every Christian to worship
God, to pay his homage morning and evening to his Maker, and at all
other proper seasons to behave as becomes a sincere worshipper of God;
nor must any avocation, either of business or nature, however necessary,
interfere with this duty, either in public or in private. This is
plainly asserting the necessity of the duty, so no man can pretend to
evade that.
But the duties of nature and religion also have such particular seasons,
and those seasons so proper to themselves, and so stated, as not to
break in or trench upon one another, that we are really without excuse,
if we let any one be pleaded for the neglect of the other. Food, sleep,
rest, and the necessities of nature, are either reserved for the night,
which is appointed for man to rest, or take up so little room in the
day, that they can never be pleaded in bar of either religion or
employment.
He, indeed, who will sleep when he should work, and perhaps drink when
he should sleep, turns nature bottom upwards, inverts the appointment of
providence, and must account to himself, and afterwards to a higher
judge, for the neglect.
The devil--if it be the devil that tempts, for I would not wrong Satan
himself--plays our duties often one against another; and to bring us, if
possible, into confusion in our conduct, subtly throws religion out of
its place, to put it in our way, and to urge us to a breach of what we
ought to do: besides this subtle tempter--for, as above, I won't charge
it all upon the devil--we have a great hand in it ourselves; but let it
be who it will, I say, this subtle tempter hurries the well-meaning
tradesman to act in all manner of irregularity, that he may confound
religion and business, and in the end may destroy both.
When the tradesman well inclined rises early in the morning, and is
moved, as in duty to his Maker he ought, to pay his morning vows to him
either in his closet, or at the church, where he hears the six o'clock
bell ring to call his neighbours to the same duty--then the secret hint
comes across his happy intention, that he must go to such or such a
place, that he may be back time enough for such other business as has
been appointed over-night, and both perhaps may be both lawful and
necessary; so his diligence oppresses his religion, and away he runs to
transact his business, and neglects his morning sacrifice to his Maker.
On the other hand, and at another time, being in his shop, or his
counting-house, or warehouse, a vast throng of business upon his hands,
and the world in his head, when it is highly his duty to attend it, and
shall be to his prejudice to absent himself--then the same deceiver
presses him earnestly to go to his closet, or to the church to prayers,
during which time his customer goes to another place, the neighbours
miss him in his shop, his business is lost, his reputation suffers; and
by this turned into a practice, the man may say his prayers so long and
so unseasonably till he is undone, and not a creditor he has (I may give
it him from experience) will use him the better, or show him the more
favour, when a commission of bankrupt comes out against him.
Thus, I knew once a zealous, pious, religious tradesman, who would
almost shut up his shop every day about nine or ten o'clock to call all
his family together to prayers; and yet he was no presbyterian, I assure
you; I say, he would almost shut up his shop, for he would suffer none
of his servants to be absent from his family worship.
This man had certainly been right, had he made all his family get up by
six o'clock in the morning, and called them to prayers before he had
opened his shop; but instead of that, he first suffered sleep to
interfere with religion, and lying a-bed to postpone and jostle out his
prayers--and then, to make God Almighty amends upon himself, wounds his
family by making his prayers interfere with his trade, and shuts his
customers out of his shop; the end of which was, the poor good man
deceived himself, and lost his business.
Another tradesman, whom I knew personally well, was raised in the
morning very early, by the outcries of his wife, to go and fetch a
midwife. It was necessary, in his way, to go by a church, where there
was always, on that day of the week, a morning sermon early, for the
supplying the devotion of such early Christians as he; so the honest
man, seeing the door open, steps in, and seeing the minister just gone
up into the pulpit, sits down, joins in the prayers, hears the sermon,
and goes very gravely home again; in short, his earnestness in the
worship, and attention to what he had heard, quite put the errand he was
sent about out of his head; and the poor woman in travail, after having
waited long for the return of her husband with the midwife, was obliged
(having run an extreme hazard by depending on his expedition) to
dispatch other messengers, who fetched the midwife, and she was come,
and the work over, long before the sermon was done, or that any body
heard of the husband: at last, he was met coming gravely home from the
church, when being upbraided with his negligence, in a dreadful surprise
he struck his hands together, and cried out, 'How is my wife? I profess
I forgot it!'
What shall we say now to this ill-timed devotion, and who must tempt the
poor man to this neglect? Certainly, had he gone for the midwife, it had
been much more his duty, than to go to hear a sermon at that time.
I knew also another tradesman, who was such a sermon-hunter, and, as
there are lectures and sermons preached in London, either in the
churches or meeting-houses, almost every day in the week, used so
assiduously to hunt out these occasions, that whether it was in a church
or meeting-house, or both, he was always abroad to hear a sermon, at
least once every day, and sometimes more; and the consequence was, that
the man lost his trade, his shop was entirely neglected, the time which
was proper for him to apply to his business was misapplied, his trade
fell off, and the man broke.
Now it is true, and I ought to take notice of it also, that, though
these things happen, and may wrong a tradesman, yet it is oftener, ten
times for once, that tradesmen neglect their shop and business to follow
the track of their vices and extravagence--some by taverns, others to
the gaming-houses, others to balls and masquerades, plays, harlequins,
and operas, very few by too much religion.
But my inference is still sound, and the more effectually so as to that
part; for if our business and trades are not to be neglected, no, not
for the extraordinary excursions of religion, and religious duties, much
less are they to be neglected for vices and extravagances.
This is an age of gallantry and gaiety, and never was the city
transposed to the court as it is now; the play-houses and balls are now
filled with citizens and young tradesmen, instead of gentlemen and
families of distinction; the shopkeepers wear a differing garb now, and
are seen with their long wigs and swords, rather than with aprons on, as
was formerly the figure they made.
But what is the difference in the consequences? You did not see in those
days acts of grace for the relief of insolvent debtors almost every
session of parliament, and yet the jails filled with insolvents before
the next year, though ten or twelve thousand have been released at a
time by those acts.
Nor did you hear of so many commissions of bankrupt every week in the
Gazette, as is now the case; in a word, whether you take the lower sort
of tradesman, or the higher, where there were twenty that failed in
those days, I believe I speak within compass if I say that five hundred
turn insolvent now; it is, as I said above, an age of pleasure, and as
the wise man said long ago, 'He that loves pleasure shall be a poor
man'--so it is now; it is an age of drunkenness and extravagance, and
thousands ruin themselves by that; it is an age of luxurious and
expensive living, and thousands more undo themselves by that; but, among
all our vices, nothing ruins a tradesman so effectually as the neglect
of his business: it is true, all those things prompt men to neglect
their business, but the more seasonable is the advice; either enter upon
no trade, undertake no business, or, having undertaken it, pursue it
diligently: drive your trade, that the world may not drive you out of
trade, and ruin and undo you. Without diligence a man can never
thoroughly understand his business and how should a man thrive, when he
does not perfectly know what he is doing, or how to do it? Application
to his trade teaches him how to carry it on, as much as his going
apprentice taught him how to set it up. Certainly, that man shall never
improve in his trading knowledge, that does not know his business, or
how to carry it on: the diligent tradesman is always the knowing and
complete tradesman.
Now, in order to have a man apply heartily, and pursue earnestly, the
business he is engaged in, there is yet another thing necessary, namely,
that he should delight in it: to follow a trade, and not to love and
delight in it, is a slavery, a bondage, not a business: the shop is a
bridewell, and the warehouse a house of correction to the tradesman, if
he does not delight in his trade. While he is bound, as we say, to keep
his shop, he is like the galley-slave chained down to the oar; he tugs
and labours indeed, and exerts the utmost of his strength, for fear of
the strapado, and because he is obliged to do it; but when he is on
shore, and is out from the bank, he abhors the labour, and hates to come
to it again.
To delight in business is making business pleasant and agreeable; and
such a tradesman cannot but be diligent in it, which, according to
Solomon, makes him certainly rich, and in time raises him above the
world and able to instruct and encourage those who come after him.