There is hardly an employment in life so trifling that it will not afford a subsistence, if constantly and faithfully followed. Indeed, it is by indefatigable diligence alone, that a fortune can be acquired in any business whatever. An estate procured by what is commonly called a lucky hit, is a rare instance; and he who expects to have his fortune made in that way, is about as rational as he who should neglect all probable means of earning, in hopes that he should some time or other find a treasure. There is no such thing as continuing in the same condition without an income of some kind or other. If a man does not bestir himself, poverty must, sooner or later, overtake him. If he continues to expend for the necessary charges of life, and will not take the pains to gain something to supply the place of what he deals out, his funds must at length come to an end; and the misery of poverty fall upon him at an age when he is less able to grapple with it. No employment that is really useful to mankind deserves to be regarded as mean. This has been a stumbling stone to many young men. Because they could not pursue a course which they deemed sufficiently respectable, they neglected business altogether until so late in life that they were ashamed to make a beginning. A most fatal mistake. Pin making is a minute affair, but will any one call the employment a mean one? If _so_, it is one which the whole civilized world encourage, and to which they are under lasting obligation daily. Any useful business ought to be reputable, which is reputably followed. The character of a drone is always, especially among the human species, one of the most contemptible. In proportion to a person's activity for his own good and that of his fellow creatures, he is to be regarded as a more or less valuable member of society. If all the idle people in the United States were to be buried in one year, the loss would be trifling in comparison with the loss of only a _very few_ industrious people. Each moment of time ought to be put to proper use, either in business, in improving the mind, in the innocent and necessary relaxations and entertainments of life, or in the care of the moral and religious part of our nature. Each moment of time is, in the language of theology, a monument of Divine mercy. SECTION V. _Proper Time of Doing Business._