Every man should sweep before his own door
Charles Spurgeon · John Ploughman's Pictures; or, More of His Plain Talk for Plain People
FORE HIS OWN DOOR.
HE is a wise man who has wit enough
for his own affairs. It is a common
thing for people to tnind Number One, but
not so common to see people mend it.
(63)
64 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S PICTURES.
When it comes to spending money on
labor or improvements, they think that re-
pairs should begin at Number Two, and
Number Three, and go on till all the houses
up to Number Fifty are touched up before
any hint should be given to Number One.
Now, this is very stupid, for if charity
should begin at home, certainly reformation
should begin there too. It is a waste of
time to go far away to make a clearance,
there's nothing like sweeping the snow
from your own door. Let every dog carry
his own tail. Mind your own business, and
mend your own manners, and if every man
does the same all will be minded and mend-
ed, as the old song says :
" Should every man defend his house,
Then all would be defended ;
If every man would mend a man.
Then all mankind were mended."
A man who does not look well to his own
concerns is not fit to be trusted with other
people's. Lots of folks are so busy abroad
that they have no time to look at home.
They say the cobbler's wife goes barefoot,
and the baker's child gets no buns, and the
SWEEP BEFORE YOUR OWN DOOR. 65
sweep's house has sooty chimneys. This
comes of a man's thinking that he is every-
body except himself. All the wit in the
world is not in one head, and therefore the
wisest man living is not bound to look
after all his neighbors' matters. There are
wonderful people about whose wisdom
would beat Solomon into fits ; and yet they
have not sense enough to keep their own ket-
tle from boiling over. They could manage
the nation, and yet can't keep their boys out
of the farmer's orchard ; they could teach the
parson, but they can't learn themselves.
They poke their noses into other people's
concerns, where they are as welcome as
water in one's shoes, but as for setting
their own house to rights, they like the job
about as much as a pig likes having a ring
put in his nose. The meddlesome man
will not begin to darn his own stockings
because he has left his needle sticking in
his cousin's socks : he will be as grey as
grannum's cat before he improves, and yet
he struts like a crow in a gutter, and thinks
himself cock of the walk.
A man's own selfishness and conceit
5
66 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S PICTURES.
ought to make him see to his own ways if
nothing else does.
There's but one wise man in the world,
And who d'ye think it be ?
'Tis this man, that man, t'other man,
Every man think's 'tis he.
Now, if this be so, why does not this wise
man do the wise thing and set his own wise
self in the way of growing wiser ? Ev^ery
cat cleans its own fur, and Hcks its own kit-
tens : when will men and women mind
their own minds, and busy themselves with
their own business ? Boil your own pota-
toes, and let me roast mine if I like ; I won't
do it with your firing. " Every man to his
tent " was the old cry in Israel, and it's not a
bad one for England, only Nelson gave us a
better —
ENGLAND EXPECTS EVERY MAN TO DO HIS
DUTY.