y
will find the little ants busy in rearing their habitation; the mole in
raising his hill; the birds in building their nests; and the little busy
bee, in sucking honey from every flower. Yet all these little creatures
appear happy and contented with their lot. If God made them to be happy,
as we suppose he did, why did he not make them to live an idle, inactive
life? Evidently because activity is necessary to enjoyment. If you would
be happy, then, you must be active. Laziness, or idleness, will
certainly make you discontented, wretched, and miserable.

As I was one day walking in one of those beautiful avenues that lead out
of the village of Saratoga Springs, my attention was arrested by two of
those insects, which children call by the homely name of
"_grand-father-long-legs_." They were laboriously occupied in rolling a
round ball, of the size of a walnut, covered with a glutinous substance,
dried hard in the sun. I could not be so cruel as to break it in pieces,
to gratify my curiosity; but I suppose it must have contained some
treasure that was dear to them--probably their eggs. They would labor
and tug, with their long arms, to roll it up an ascent; and if it rolled
back again, they would patiently return, and roll it up, showing an
example of perseverance well worthy of imitation.

Thus God has made all things to be active. All nature, animate and
inanimate, calls man to labor. If old ocean did not ebb and flow, and
roll its waves, it would stagnate, and become so noxious that no animal
could live on the face of the earth. If the earth did not pursue its
laborious course around its axis, one half of its inhabitants would be
shrouded in perpetual night, while the other half would be scorched to
death with the ever-accumulating intensity of the sun's rays. Can you
find any thing, in all the vast creation of God, that is idle? The
sluggard, of all God's works, stands alone--_idle_! He resembles the
stagnant pool, whose impure waters, filled with the loathsome creatures,
and all manner of filth, saturate the atmosphere with pestilential
vapors, and spread around it disease and death. But, the active,
industrious man, resembles the running brook, whose waters are kept
limpid and clear by their unceasing flow.

"_Business first, and then Pleasure_."

A man who is very rich now, was very poor when he was a boy. When asked
how he got his riches, he replied, "My father taught me never to play
till all my work for the