FORTY-FOURTH LESSON
On Laziness
"Go to the ant, O sluggard, and consider her ways, and learn wisdom." Proverbs 6:6
Laziness is an habitual neglect of and a voluntary distaste of our duty.
It is easy to understand, my children, that habitual neglect is far different from mere forgetfulness: you may sometimes fail in fulfilling some of your duties, without being therefore guilty of laziness. The distaste for doing your duty on account of the inconvenience it may cause you, or the difficulty you feel in accomplishing it, if it be involuntary, and if besides you try to overcome it, is not laziness either. But duties neglected out of a kind of languidness and indolence—not performed, because you do not wish to take the least trouble to bear the slightest annoyance—that is being truly lazy, and deserving the reproach of holy Scripture, so shameful to rational beings: Go to the ant, O sluggard, and consider her ways, and learn wisdom.
Laziness is also the source of numberless faults: it produces idleness, and we see also in Scripture, that idleness is the mother of every vice.
Laziness also involves loss of time, which is not the same thing as idleness. To lose time is not to remain unemployed: it is not to make a good use of time, by not employing it usefully and according to the will of God. My children, at your age, you do not appreciate the value of time, life seems so long! its end seems as yet so far off! you think that you will never reach it, and you are full of confidence in the future to make up for all loss of time. And yet, alas! who can rely on the future.
It belongs to no one, and the present moment is the only one we can dispose of. Learn then now to make good use of it, my children, and be fully persuaded that you will but reap in your after years what you have sown in your childhood.
One of the worst consequences of laziness is lukewarmness. Lukewarmness is a kind of carelessness in the service of God, and in the work of salvation. You pray, but without satisfaction, without fervor; you go to mass, but without devotion. My children, would it be worthy of God to accept such homage? Lukewarmness is not less to be feared in the accomplishment of our other duties. Thus, if you only abstain from what is strictly forbidden, without being desirous of doing good in the practice of good works what do you become? Nought but useless servants, like unto those trees, which our Lord condemned to be burnt, because they bore no good fruit.
My children, you must strive against all inclination to laziness, by showing yourselves very active in your love of occupation and zeal for study. Daily study and regular lessons are particularly opposed to your laziness. Nevertheless the course of your education is begun; and you must go through it to the end, whether you like it or not: why then do you not enter on your studies with that ardor which would make them both interesting and pleasing? Why always think that it is tedious to learn, and never that it may be agreeable to know? Would it please you, some years later, to be noticed for your ignorance? No, no doubt. Well, laziness may have a still sadder result: it may deprive you of the means of being useful to others.
Besides, my dear children, work is a duty, a duty imposed on mankind. God said to us all, as to our first parent: "In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat thy bread." It is true, we are not all obliged to labor with our hands, or to till the earth: owing to a sad necessity which kind hearts lament, though ordained by God himself, there are here below rich and poor; some have plenty of everything and without difficulty, whilst others suffer numberless privations, and can earn the bare necessaries of life only by dint of hard work; but be not mistaken, my children: even those who have been endowed with wealth, are none the less obliged to fulfil their task, and obey this law of labor. Look around you. you will see that amongst rational people and those who understand their duty, not a single person but is busy at some work or other, and whose time is usefully employed.
Do you wish then, my children, to be the only ones who do nothing? You who see every one at work, you for whom so many work, will you be always murmuring on account of the ordinary duties imposed upon you? Ah! by so doing you would be guilty of such ingratitude towards Almighty God, who has preferred you before so many others, by allowing you to be born in such a fortunate station of life! You have perhaps never thought of this! perhaps you have never reflected on the hard lot of some children of your age? Well, to cure you of your laziness, I must here say a few words about the labor of the children of the poor, even if by so doing I sadden your young hearts.
The children of the poor, who are most to be pitied, are certainly not those who live in the country; though you may have often met some of them, who starting before daybreak, through snow and bleak winds, bring back to their homes, loads of dry wood, too heavy for their young shoulders. That is one of their winter occupations. In summer, during harvest time, these unfortunate children spend their whole day, bowed to the ground, and scorched by the blazing sun, to glean a few ears of corn. Thus at an early age do they begin a life of labor and fatigue.
And these poor little sweeps, who have come on foot from the country to our cities, in the hope of earning their living, and whom you hear early on winter mornings offering their services in the streets, do you know, my children, why as you cross the road, which they have just swept clean for you, they hold out their blackened hand, saying in a doleful voice: "Please remember the sweeper?"—It is because they generally belong to hard and tyrannical masters, who oblige them to bring home daily a certain sum, and who if they fail in so doing, beat and ill-treat them, besides depriving them very often of their scanty evening meal.
These children are, no doubt, most unhappy; however, there are others still more so. In woollen, cotton, and silk manufactories, in damp unhealthy workshops, hundreds of young people are crowded together and confined during ten or twelve hours of continual and monotonous labor. Constantly employed at the same work, they become, as we may say, part of the machines near which they toil: their intellect remains stagnant, their health is weakened; and their heart is often corrupted by the influence of bad example. Many of these poor little ones, separated from their parents, do not know the sweetness of family ties. No one is there to look after them and care for them; no one loves them. After their day's work, they never meet with a kind word at night, or a caress. Very scanty fare, a little straw to sleep upon: that is what awaits them. The morrow brings back the same wearing task, the same tedious day's work, and so they go on, day after day: such is their life!
And you, my dear children, you are taught music, drawing, history. These attractive studies can already be of deep interest to you, and at a later period, they will become the source of real enjoyment. These lessons are given you either by a kind, gentle, and patient mother, or by indulgent and polite governesses or tutors. The hours of study are regulated according to your strength: and made easy to you by the best methods, during these hours the diversity of your studies makes them more agreeable to you; they are intermingled with intervals of rest and playtime. Every one of your efforts receives an encouragement, the slightest progress is rewarded, and yet you are lazy! and you dare complain! never do so any more. The remembrance of those unhappy little beings condemned to lead such a hard life, will henceforth be ever present to your mind, and will make you ashamed of your indolence; you will also think of that divine infant Jesus, who though he was God, willingly devoted nearly his whole life to helping St. Joseph in his humble trade. Such an example will leave no excuse for your sloth.
Then, if you happen to meet one of those children, who with such great hardship earns his daily bread, if you pity his misery as you ought, at least you will not have to blush on your own account. You will be able to say to yourselves: "I also work, if not like you, poor little fellow, at least as much as my parents wish, as much as God requires of me."
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