The Adventures of Lot, the Nephew of Abraham, page 19 by William Andrus Alcott
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ich that he concluded to give up his business, and said within himself; "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; now take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry." But did he obtain ease? Was not his soul called away to judgment that very night?
And had he lived, it would not have been to enjoy a life of exemption from cares. Men who are brought up to a life of action till they are thirty, forty, or fifty years of age, cannot safely leave off business. The very circumstance of their having always been active, creates a necessity of their continuing so. Those who spend the first half of their life in inaction, will not suffer quite so much, it is true, by remaining inactive during the remainder of it. The rich man in the gospel, is represented as having been an active, business-doing man; and therefore he must have suffered by "giving up his business," had he even been permitted to live.
It is very true that a considerable number of people try the plan of giving up their business. Probably most mercantile men intend to do so, when they commence. But having become very much engaged, and having acquired a little property, their desires to acquire more increase in proportion; and continue to do so, as long as they live; and death surprises them with their hearts much more anxiously set on money getting, than they were when they began in this world.
But suppose they go on to forty or fifty years of age, become exceedingly rich, lay aside their business, and undertake to live at their ease; what then? I will tell you what often happens; not in every case, I know; but in six cases out of ten.
They no sooner dismiss their business than they say to themselves -- or rather think it than say it -- Now, "take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry." So they go to eating and drinking more, and usually of richer food, than before they left off their business; while at the same time they use less exercise. Whereas, if they diminish their excercise, they ought to diminish their food, either as r