Page:Sermons preached in the African Protestant Episcopal Church of St. Thomas', Philadelphia.djvu/180

176 industry may be regarded in close contact with religion, is, that a habit of diligence is thereby cultivated, which is indispensable to true religion. Moral virtue and religion are sure to suffer wherever idleness prevails. It is an enemy to all good, and the nursery of every evil and vicious principle and practice. An idler, therefore, should be shunned, as you would the plague or pestilence. These remarks may not apply to any one present: each one may readily point to his daily avocation as a just refutation of the charge of idleness, so far as temporary matters are concerned. This is all very well in its place, we are every way disposed to award to you all the credit that is due to an attentive regard to daily business. But there is such a thing as idleness in another direction in which you may not so easily ward off the conviction of your guilt. We are compound beings, possessed of an immaterial, as well as a material and mortal nature. And the same great