But more. And here I speak to young people; for their elders, I
doubt not, have found it out long since for themselves. Work, hard
work, is a blessing to the soul and character of the man who works.
Young men may not think so. They may say, What more pleasant than
to have one's fortune made for one, and have nothing before one than
to enjoy life? What more pleasant than to be idle: or, at least,
to do only what one likes, and no more than one likes? But they
would find themselves mistaken. They would find that idleness makes
a man restless, discontented, greedy, the slave of his own lusts and
passions, and see too late, that no man is more to be pitied than
the man who has nothing to do. Yes; thank God every morning, when
you get up, that you have something to do that day which must be
done, whether you like or not. Being forced to work, and forced to
do your best, will breed in you temperance and self-control,
diligence and strength of will, cheerfulness and content and a
hundred virtues which the idle man will never know. The monks in
old time found it so. When they shut themselves up from the world
to worship God in prayers and hymns, they found that, without
working, without hard work either of head or hands, they could not
even be good men. The devil came and tempted them, they said, as
often as they were idle.
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