by Him to use all their diligence in gaining this prize. This last answer would appear stranger to him than all the monsters and prodigies he ever saw in Africa or America.
Finally: the idler is no good to his God, who hates idleness. And from this, my dear brethren, we see the third point in which the idler is useless; for if he is of no use to himself or to his neighbor, neither is he of any to his God, whom he should serve. There are many who imagine that to avoid idleness and fill up the time with some becoming occupation, thus turning it to profit for one’s soul, is necessary only for those who cannot otherwise find the means of livelihood, or as a salutary work of supererogation for those who desire to gain greater glory in heaven; but that there is no law of God binding every one under pain of sin to work. But they are vastly mistaken. Nor will I refute them with St. Thomas of Aquin, who expressly teaches that man cannot do a single work with full deliberation and attention without either doing thereby a good and virtuous work or else committing a sin, and this latter is the case when the work is not directed to the proper end, the salvation of our souls and the fulfilment of the will of God. Let idlers see how they can direct their frivolous occupations to this end. It is certain that all adults who do not receive heaven as their reward will be punished forever in hell; now the Lord has said that He will not give heaven unless to those who work diligently for it: “Call the laborers and pay them their hire,”[1] He says in the Gospel. And it is also infallibly certain that the just God will demand a strict account of every idle word: “But I say unto you that every idle word that men shall speak they shall render an account for it in the day of judgment,”[2] and not one such word shall go unpunished. What must then be the result of all the useless thoughts, imaginations, vain conversations, idle staring, and other frivolous things in which the idle pass their time and squander it so shamefully?
It is culpable to pass the time in idleness. It is to no purpose that they try to excuse themselves by saying: we do no harm; we do not commit a sin by seeking our comfort. What? You do no harm? You lead an idle life, and commit no sin? That is, humanly speaking, an impossibility. Even if no mortal sin is committed for some time, that very idleness itself is evil doing, as St. John Chrysostom says distinct-
