Woe to the man who is of no use! The Lord
have mercy on his soul; for he needs it! It is, indeed, worth his
while to take any trouble which will teach him a motive for being
useful; in plain words, stir him up to do his duty, to do his rights;
for a man's rights are not, as the world thinks, what is right others
should do to him, but what is right he should do to others. Our duty
is our right, the only thing which is right for us. What motive will
constrain us, that is, bind us, and force us to do that?
Will self-interest? Will a man do right because you tell him it is
his interest, it will pay him to do it? Look round you and see.--The
drunkard knows that drinking will ruin him, and yet he gets drunk.
The spendthrift knows that extravagance will ruin him, and yet he
throws away his money still. The idler knows that he is wasting his
only chance for all eternity, and yet he puts the thought out of his
head, and goes on idling. The cheat knows that he is in danger of
being almost certainly found out sooner or later; he knows too that
he is burdening his own conscience with the curse of inward shame and
self-contempt; and yet he goes on cheating. The hard master knows,
or ought to know (for there is quite enough to prove it to him) that
it would pay him better in the long run to be more merciful, and less
covetous; that by grinding those whom he employs down to the last
farthing, he degrades them till they become burdens on him and curses
to him; that what he gains by high prices, he will lose in the long
run by bad debts; that what he saves in low wages, he will pay in
extra poor-rates; and that even if he does make money out of the
flesh and bones of those beneath him, that money ill gotten is sure
to be ill spent, that there is a curse on it, that it brings a curse
in the gnawing of a man's own conscience, and a curse too in the way
it flows away from his family as fast as it flowed to them.
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