He who thinks wisely can never live a life of idleness, and where there is excessive indolence of the body there is never healthy action of the mind. A life of use is a life of holiness; and a life of idleness is a life of sin. He who performs no social use, who makes no human being happier or better, is leading a life of utter selfishness; is walking in a way that ends in spiritual death. In the parable of the sheep and the goats, the King condemns those on the left hand, not because they have done that which was wrong, but because they have omitted doing that which was right. No human being in possession of his mental faculties is so incompetent that he can do nothing for the benefit of those around him. One prostrate on a bed of sickness might seem, at first glance, incapable of performing any use; and yet, not unfrequently, what high and holy lessons of patient faith, of unwavering piety, are taught by such a being,--lessons that can never die out from the memory of those who minister at the couch of suffering. When the body lies powerless, and the hand has lost its cunning, when even the tongue is palsied in death, how often has the eye, still faithful to the heavenly Master, by a glance of holy peace performed the last act of charity to the bereaved ones whom it looks upon with the eye of flesh for the last time. So long as life remains to us our duties are unfinished: God yet desires our service on earth, and while he desires let us not doubt our capacity to serve. Even for one in the solitude of a prison-cell, when acts of charity become impossible, the duty of labor is not taken away. One may still work for the Father in Heaven, though sitting in darkness, and with manacled limbs. To possess the soul in patience, to be meek, forgiving, and pious, are duties amply sufficient to tax the powers of the strongest. There is no room for idleness even here.