It is hard for an empty sack to stand upright
Charles Spurgeon · John Ploughman's Pictures; or, More of His Plain Talk for Plain People
TO STAND UPRIGHT.
SAM may try a fine while before he will
make one of his empty sacks stand
upright. If he were not half daft he would
have left off that job before he began it,
(23)
24 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S PICTURES.
and not have been an Irishman either. He
will come to his wit's end before he sets the
sack on its end. The old proverb, printed
at the top, was made by a man who had
burnt his fingers with debtors, and it just
means that when folks have no money and
are over head and ears in debt, as often as
not they leave off being upright, and tum-
ble over one way or another. He that has
but four and spends five will soon need no
purse, but he will most likely begin to use
his wits to keep himself afloat, and take to
all sorts of dodges to manage it.
Nine times out of ten they begin by mak-
ing promises to pay on a certain day when
it is certain they have nothing to pay with.
They are as bold at fixing the time as if
they had my lord's income : the day comes
round as sure as Christmas, and then they
haven't a penny-piece in the world, and so
they make all sorts of excuses and begin to
promise again. Those who are quick to
promise are generally slow to perform.
They promise mountains and perform mole-
hills. He who gives you fair words and
nothing more feeds you with an empty
spoon, and hungry creditors soon grow
EMPTY SACKS. 25
tired of that game. Promises don't fill the
belly. Promising men are not great favor-
ites if they are not performing men. When
such a fellow is called a liar he thinks he is
hardly done by ; and yet he is so, as sure
as eggs are eggs, and there's no denying it,
as the boy said when the gardener caught
him up the cherry-tree. People don't think
much of a man's piety when his promises
are like pie-crust, made to be broken : they
generally turn crusty themselves and give
him a bit of their mind. Like old Tusser,
who said of such an one :
" His promise to trust to is slippery as ice.
His credit much like to the chance of the dice."
Creditors have better memories than debt-
ors, and when they have been taken in
more than once they think it is time that
the fox went to the furrier, and they had
their share of his skin. Waiting for your
money does not sweeten a man's temper,
and a few lies on the top of it turn the milk
of human kindness into sour stuff Here is
an old-fashioned saying which a bad payer
may put in his pipe, and smoke or not, as
he likes :
26 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S PICTURES.
" He that promiseth till no man will trust him,
He that lieth till no man will believe him,
He that borroweth till no man will lend him,
Let him go where no man knoweth him."
Hungry dogs will eat dirty puddings, and
people who are hard up very often do dirty
actions. Blessed be God, there is some
cloth still made which will not shrink in
the wetting, and some honesty which holds
on under misfortune ; but too often debt is
the worst kind of poverty, because it breeds
deceit. Men do not like to face their cir-
cumstances, and so they turn their backs on
the truth. They try all sorts of schemes to
get out of their difficulties, and like the
Banbury tinker, they make three holes in
the saucepan to mend one. They are like
Pedley, who burnt a penny candle in look-
ing for a farthing. They borrow of Peter
to pay Paul, and then Peter is let in for
it. To avoid a brook they leap into a
river, for they borrow at ruinous interest
to pay off those who squeeze them tight.
By ordering goods which they cannot pay
for, and selling them for whatever they can
get, they may put off one evil day, but
they only bring on another. One trick
EMPTY SACKS. 27
needs another trick to back it up, and thus
they go on over shoes and then over boots.
Hoping that something will turn up, they
go on raking for the moon in a ditch, and
all the luck that comes to them is like
Johnny Toy's, who lost a shilling and
found a two-penny loaf Any short cut
tempts them out of the high road of honesty,
and they find after awhile that they have
gone miles out of their way. At last
people fight shy of them, and say that they
are as honest as a cat when the meat is out
of reach, and they murmur that plain deal-
ing is dead, and died without issue. Who
wonders ? People who are bitten once are
in no hurry to put their fingers into the
same mouth again. You don't trust a
horse's heel after it has kicked you, nor
lean on a staff which has once broken.
Too much cunning overdoes its work, and
in the long run there is no craft which is so
wise as simple honesty.
I would not be hard on a poor fellow,
nor pour water on a drowned mouse : if
through misfortune the man can't pay, why
he can't pay, and let him say so, and do the
honest thine with what little he has. and
28 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S PICTURES.
kind hearts will feel for him. A wise man
does at first what a fool does at last. The
worst of it is, that debtors will hold on long
after it is honest to do so, and they try to
persuade themselves that their ship will
come home, or their cats will grow into
cows. It is hard to sail over the sea in an
egg-shell, and it is not much easier to pay
your way when your capital is all gone.
Out of nothing comes nothing, and you
may turn your nothing over a long time be-
fore it will grow into a ten-pound note. The
way to Babylon will never bring you to
Jerusalem, and borrowing, and diving deep-
er into debt, will never get a man out of
difficulties.
The world is a ladder for some to go up
and some to go down, but there is no need
to lose your character because you lose
your money. Some people jump out of the
frying-pan into the fire; for fear of being
paupers they become rogues. You find
them slippery customers ; you can't bind
them to anything : you think you have got
them, but you can't hold them any longer
than you can keep a cat in a wheelbarrow.
The can jump over nine hedges, and nine
EMPTY SACKS. 29
more after that. They always deceive you,
and then plead the badness of the times, or
the sickness of their family. You cannot help
them, for there's no telling where they are.
It is always best to let them come to the
end of their tether, for when they are
cleaned out of their old rubbish they may
perhaps begin in a better fashion. You can-
not get out of a sack what is not in it, and
when a man's purse is as bare as the back
of your hand, the longer you patch him up
the barer he will become, like Bill Bones,
who cut up his coat to patch his waistcoat,
and then used his trousers to mend his coat,
and at last had to lie in bed for want of a
rag to cover him.
Let the poor, unfortunate tradesman hold
to his honesty as he would to his life. The
straight road is the shortest cut. Better
break stones on the road than break the law
of God. Faith in God should save a Christ-
ian man from anything like a dirty action ;
let him not even think of playing a trick,
for you cannot touch pitch without being
defiled therewith. Christ and a crust is
riches, but a broken character is the worst
of bankruptcy. All is not lost while up-
30 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S PICTURES.
Tightness remains ; but still it is hard to
make an empty sack stand upright.
There are other ways of using the old
saying. It is hard for a hypocrite to keep
up his profession. Empty sacks can't stand
upright in a church any better than in a
granary. Prating does not make saints,
or there would be plenty of them. Some
talkatives have not religion enough to
flavor soup for a sick grasshopper, and
they have to be mighty cunning to keep
the game going. Long prayers and loud
professions only deceive the simple, and
those who see further than the surface soon
spy out the wolf under the sheepskin.
All hope of salvation by our own good
works is a foolish attempt to make an empty
sack stand upright. We are undeserving,
ill-deserving, hell-deserving sinners at the
best. The law of God must be kept
without a single failure if we hope to be
accepted by it ; but there is not one among
us who has lived a day without sin. No,
we are a lot of empty sacks, and unless the
merits of Christ are put into us to fill us up,
we cannot stand in the sight of God. The
EMPTY SACKS. 31
law condemns us already, and to hope for
salvation by it is to run to the gallows to
prolong our lives. There is a full Christ
for empty sinners, but those who hope to
fill themselves will find their hopes fail them.