In the circle of man's evil propensities, no one, perhaps, is a more fruitful mother of wretchedness and crime than the propensity to indolence. It is a common saying, that the love of money is the root of all evil; but that root often runs deeper, and finds its life in indolence, which incites those under its dominion to seek money through unlawful means. The desire for money impels most men to constant effort, and there is no reason for attributing a stronger desire to him who steals or defrauds than to him who labors steadfastly, every day of his life, from early dawn to eve; yet we praise the latter, and condemn the former. It is not, then, the love of money that we condemn, but the desire to attain it by vicious means; and such desire results from a hatred for labor, which is the only legitimate means by which it may be gained. Money in itself is but dead matter, serving only as a minister to some end beyond; and the simple desire for it is neither good nor bad: the end for which it is desired elevates the desire itself to a virtue, or degrades it to a vice; and the means which we adopt for obtaining it, and the purposes to which we apply it, make it either a blessing or a curse.
Every possession, whether moral, intellectual, or physical, is the legitimate reward of labor wisely and earnestly applied; and for these rewards the virtuous are content to labor without repining, and to them, not only the rewards, but the labor itself, is blessed. The vicious, on the contrary, desire the rewards, but hate the labor by which they should be gained. They, therefore, accordingly as they belong to different classes of society, simulate virtues which they do not possess, pretend to acquirements they have been too idle to gain, or strive after wealth by any means, rather than patient industry and honest effort.
It is not the vicious alone who fail to perceive that labor is a blessing from which a wise man can never fly. The curse applied to Adam, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread," has led many to suppose that originally the wants of the human race were supplied without any exertion of its own,--that in the garden of Eden there was enjoyment without effort, possession without labor. Even in the pulpit, labor is sometimes spoken of as a curse pertaining only to life in this world, from which we shall be delivered in the life to come. Nothing can be farther from the truth. Employment is the life of every soul, from the Most High down to the least of his children. They only who are spiritually dead, or sleeping, ask for idleness. It is man fallen who looks on labor as a curse, not man walking with God in the garden of Eden; and to man, when he has fallen, labor is indeed a curse, for his soul is so perverted that he knows not the true nature and qualities of a blessing.