ted, 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,