Idleness – Charles Spurgeon

MANY a parson buys or hires a sermon, so that he may save himself the trouble of thinking. Is not this abominable laziness? They sneer at the Ranters, but there is not a Ranter in the kingdom but what would be ashamed to stand up and read somebody else’s sermon as if it were his own. Many of our squires have nothing to do but to part their hair in the middle; and many of the London grandees, ladies and gentlemen both alike, as I am told, have no better work than killing time. Now, they say the higher a monkey climbs the more his tail is seen; and so the greater these people are the more their idleness is noticed, and the more they ought to be ashamed of it. I do not say that they ought to plough, but I do say that they ought to do something for the State besides being like the caterpillars on the cabbage, eating up the good things: or like the butterflies, showing themselves off, but making no honey.