58 FABLES. 



and lazy life has brought you to, a premature and 

 painful death. 



APPLICATION. 



WE may learn by this P^able the general con- 

 sequence of an idle life, and how well rewarded 

 laborious diligent men are in the end, when they 

 quietly enjoy the fruits of their industry. They 

 who by little tricks and chicanery, or by open 

 violence and robbery are enabled to live in a high 

 expensive way, often despise the poor honest man, 

 who is contented with the humble produce of his 

 daily labour. But how r often is the poor man com- 

 forted, by seeing these wanton villains led in 

 disgrace and misery to the altar of justice, while he 

 lias many a cheerful summer's morning to enjoy 

 abroad, and many a long winter's evening to in- 

 dulge in at home, by a quiet hearth, and under an 

 unenvied roof: blessings, which often attend a 

 sober industrious man, though the idle and the 

 profligate are utter strangers to them. Luxury and 

 intemperance, besides their inevitable tendency to 

 shorten a man's days, are very apt to engage their 

 besotted votaries in a debauched life, not only pre- 

 judicial to their health, but which engenders in 

 them a contempt for those whose good sense and 

 true taste of happiness inspire them with an aver- 

 sion to idleness and effeminacy, and put them upon 

 hardening their constitutions by innocent exercise 

 and laudable employment. How many do gluttony 

 and sloth tumble into an untimely grave! while 

 the temperate and the active drink sober draughts 

 of life, and spin out the thread of their existence to 

 the most desirable length. 



