One of the surest safeguards against evil is useful occupation, while idleness is one of the greatest curses; for vice, crime, and poverty follow in its wake. Those who are always busy, who go cheerfully about their daily tasks, are the useful members of society. In the faithful discharge of the various duties that lie in their pathway, they make their lives a blessing to themselves and to others. Diligent labor keeps them from many of the snares of him who “finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.”
(CT 275.1)
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VC
A stagnant pool soon becomes offensive, but a flowing brook spreads health and gladness over the land. The one is a symbol of the idle, the other of the industrious.
(CT 275.2)
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In God’s plan for Israel every family had a home on the land with sufficient ground for tilling. Thus were provided both the means and the incentive for a useful, industrious, and self-supporting life. And no devising of men has ever improved upon that plan. To the world’s departure from it is owing, to a large degree, the poverty and wretchedness that exist today.
(CT 275.3)
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VC