1.One day I was driven by a rain-storm to take shelter in a little hut by the road-side,which was used by a cobbler as his workshop.The man and his son were busy at their work;and after saying,"Good-day,"we began to talk together.
2.Before I had been with them long,the old man sent his son out to get something that he needed for his work.The lad was only five minutes away,but it was too long for the active old cobbler to be idle.He became uneasy,moved about the room,and at last took up a scrap of leather and fell to work upon it,saying,"You know,sir,it will never do to be idle."
3.As soon as the rain was over,I went on my way homeward,thinking over what I had heard-"It will never do to be idle."Some people are always idle,others are idle only now and then.I was one of the latter class.I could work only by fits and starts.So the old man's words came home to me.They rouse.my conscience,and I began to feel how wrong it was to waste so much of my life in idleness.
4.I had often heard and read that idleness is a very great evil;but now I began to see that it causes far more sorrow than people are aware of.It is the man who is doing nothing that is drawn into mischief,while the busy man is safe.It is only the idle that are wretched.A soldier in the heat of battle does not feel even the pain of a wound.
5.When a man is busy he is said to be "occupied."What does that mean?It means that a man at work is like a house with people dwelling in it.To be "occupied"full of our work,there is no room for anything else.Idleness,on the other hand,is emptiness;and when the mind is empty,then the doors are thrown open,and evil thoughts troop in.
6.It is the misspent odds and ends of our time that do most of us harm.We waste them instead of using them.A few minutes of idleness is often enough to spoil us for the work of the day.When it once gets hold of a man the habit of idleness is not to be shaken off easily.
7.As I have said,I made up my mind to follow the cobbler's rule for the rest of my life.Above all,I was determined that my mind should never be empty.Oh,it was very hard at first!but I kept to my purpose.I clung to it;I cherish edit.
8.If any one ever feels the approach,the first approach,of laziness,let him say to himself,"In the next quarter of an hour I will do such a thing;"