PREFACE
Charles Spurgeon · John Ploughman's Talk; or, Plain Advice for Plain People
IN "John Ploughman's Talk" I have
written for ploughmen and common
people. Hence refined taste and dainty
words have been discarded for strong pro-
verbial expressions and homely phrases. I
have aimed my blows at the vices of the
many, and tried to inculcate those moral
virtues without which men are degraded.
Much that needs to be said to the toiling
masses would not well suit the pulpit and
the Sabbath ; these lowly pages may teach
thrift and industry all the days of the week,
in the cottage and the workshop ; and if
some learn these lessons I shall not repent
the adoption of a rustic style.
Ploughman is a name I may justly claim.
Every minister has put his hand to the
plough : and it is his business to break up
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4 PREFACE.
the fallow ground. That I have written in
a semi-humorous vein needs no apology,
since thereby sound moral teaching has
gained a hearing from at least 300,000 per-
sons. There is no particular virtue in be-
ing seriously unreadable.
A pickle jar has these words upon it : " If
you like our pickles, try our sauce," and
so I would add, if you like " John Plough-
man's Talk," try his " Pictures; " which is a
second volume of the same character as the
present.
C. H. SPURGEON.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
To the Idle 7
On Religious Grumblers 22
On the Preacher's Appearance 33
On Good Nature and Firmness 39
On Patience 50
On Gossips 57
On Seizing Opportunities 62
On Keeping One's Eyes Open 69
Thoughts about Thought 76
Faults S3
Things not worth Trying 89
Debt 96
Home Ill
Men who are Down 123
Hope 131
Spending 140
A Good Word for Wives 148
Men with Two Faces 163
Hints as to Thriving 1 73
Tall Talk 185
Things I would not Choose ........ 197
Try 204
Monuments 213
Very Ignorant People 221
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JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALL
IT is of no more use to give advice to the
idle than to pour water into a sieve ;
and as to improving them, one might as
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8 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK.
well try to fatten a greyhound. Yet, as
The Old Book tells us to " cast our bread
upon the waters," we will cast a hard crust
or two upon these stagnant ponds ; for there
will be this comfort about it, if lazy fellows
grow no better, we shall be none the worse
for having warned them ; for when we sow
good sense, the basket gets none the
emptier. We have a stiff bit of soil to
plough when we chide with sluggards, and
the crop will be of the smallest ; but if none
but good land were farmed, ploughmen
would be out of work ; so we'll put the
plough into the furrow. Idle men are com-
mon enough, and grow without planting,
but the quantity of wit among seven acres
of them would never pay for raking: noth-
ing is needed to prove this but their name
and their character ; if they were not fools
they would not be idlers ; and though Solo-
mon says, " The sluggard is wiser in his
own conceit than seven men that can ren-
der a reason," yet in the eyes of every one
else his folly is as plain as the sun in the
sky. If I hit hard while speaking to them,
it is because I know they can bear it ; for
if I had them down on the floor of the old
TO THE IDLE. 9
barn, I might thresh many a day before I
could get them out of the straw, and even
the steam thresher could not do it, it would
kill them first; for laziness is in some
people's bones, and will show itself in their
idle flesh, do what you will with them.
Well, then, first and foremost, it strikes
me that lazy people ought to have a large
looking glass hung up, where they are
bound to see themselves in it ; for sure,
if their eyes are at all like mine, they would
never bear to look at themselves long or
often. The ugliest sight in the world is
one of those thorough-bred loafers, who
would hardly hold up his basin if it were
to rain porridge ; and for certain would
never hold up a bigger pot than he wanted
filled for himself. Perhaps, if the shower
should turn to beer, he might wake him-
self up a bit ; but he would make up for it
afterwards. This is the slothful man in the
Proverbs, who uhideth his hand in his
bosom ; it grieveth him to bring it again to
his mouth." I say that men the like of this
ought to be served like the drones which
the bees drive out of the hives. Every
man ought to have patience and pity for
io JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK.
poverty; but for laziness, a long whip; or
a turn at the treadmill might be better.
This would be healthy physic for all slug-
gards; but there is no chance of some of
them getting their full doze of this medi-
cine, for they were born with silver spoons
in their mouths, and like spoons, they will
scarce stir their own tea unless somebody
lends them a hand. They are, as the old
proverb says/* as lazy as Ludham's dog, that
leaned his head against the wall to bark ;"
and, like lazy sheep, it is too much trouble
for them to carry their own wool. If they
could see themselves, it might by chance do
them a world of good; but perhaps it
would be too much trouble for them to
open their eyes even if the glass were hung
for them.
Everything in the world is of some use ;
but it would puzzle a doctor of divinity, or
a philosopher, or the wisest owl in our
steeple, to tell the good of idleness : that
seems to me to be an ill wind which blows
nobody any good — a sort of mud which
breeds no eels, a dirty ditch which would
not feed a frog. Sift a sluggard grain by
grain, and you'll find him all chaff. I have
TO THE IDLE. II
heard men say, " Better do nothing than do
mischief," but I am not even sure of that:
that saying glitters well, but I don't believe
it's gold. I grudge laziness even that pinch
of praise, I say it is bad and bad altogether ;
for look ye, a man doing mischief is a spar-
row picking the corn — but a lazy man is a
sparrow sitting on a nest full of eggs, which
will all turn to sparrows before long, and do
a world of hurt. Don't tell me, I'm sure
of it, that the rankest weeds on earth don't
grow in the minds of those who are busy at
wickedness, but in foul corners of idle men's
imaginations, where the devil can hide away
unseen like an old serpent as he is. I don't
like our boys to be in mischief, but I would
sooner see them up to their necks in the
mud in their larks, than sauntering about
with nothing to do. If the evil of doing
nothing seems to be less to-day, you will
find it out to be greater to-morrow ; the
devil is putting coals on the fire, and so the
fire does not blaze, but, depend upon it, it
will be a bigger fire in the end. Idle peo-
ple, you had need be your own trumpeters,
for no one else can find any good in you to
praise. I'd sooner see you through a tele-
12 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK.
scope than anything else, for I suppose you
would then be a long way off; but the big-
gest pair of spectacles in the parish could
not see anything in you worth talking
about. Moles, and rats, and weasels, there
is something to be said for, though there's
a pretty sight of them nailed up on our old
barn, but as for you — well, you'll be of use
in the grave, and help to make a fat church-
yard, but no better song can I sing in your
favor than this verse, as the parish clerk
said, " all of my own composing : "
A good-for-nothing lazy lout,
Wicked within and ragged without,
Who can bear to have him about ?
Turn him out ! Turn him out !
"As vinegar to the teeth, and as smoke to
the eyes," so is the sluggard to every man
who is spending his sweat to earn an hon-
est living, while these fellows let the grass
grow up to their ankles, and stand cumber-
ing the ground, as the Bible says.
A man who wastes his time and his
strength in sloth offers himself to be a tar-
get for the devil, who is a wonderfully good
rifleman, and will riddle the idler with his
TO THE IDLE. 13
shots : in other words, idle men tempt the
devil to tempt them. He who plays when
he should work, has an evil spirit to be
his playmate; and he who neither works
nor plays is a workshop for Satan. If the
devil catch a man idle, he will set him to
work, find him tools, and before long pay
him wages. Is not this where the drunken-
ness comes from which fills our towns and
villages with misery ? Idleness is the key
of beggary, and the root of all evil. Fellows
have two stomachs for eating and drinking
when they have no stomach for work. That
little hole just under the nose swallows up
in idle hours that money which should put
clothes on the children's backs, and bread
on the cottage table. We have God's word
for it, that " the drunkard and the glutton
shall come to poverty ; " and to show the
connection between them, it is said in the
same verse, " and drowsiness shall clothe a
man with rags." I know it as well as I
know that moss grows on old thatch, that
drunken, loose habits grow out of lazy
hours. I like leisure when I can get it, but
that's quite another thing ; that's cheese
and the other is chalk ; idle folks never know
14 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK.
what leisure means ; they are always in a
hurry and a mess, and by neglecting to
work in the proper time, they always have
a lot to do. Lolling about hour after hour,
with nothing to do, is just making holes in
the hedge to let the pigs through, and they
will come through, and no mistake, and the
rooting they will do nobody knows but
those who have to look after the garden.
The Lord Jesus tells us himself that when
men slept the enemy sowed the tares ; and
that hits the nail on the head, for it is by
the door of sluggishness that evil enters
the heart more often, it seems to me, than
by any other. Our old minister used to
say, "A sluggard is fine raw material for'
the devil ; he can make anything he likes
out of him, from a thief right up to a mur-
derer." I'm not the only one that con-
demns the idle, for once when I was going
to give our minister a pretty long list of the
sins of one of our people that he was asking
after, I began with " he's dreadfully lazy."
" That's enough," said the old gentleman;
"all sorts of sins are in that one, that's
the sign by which to know a full-fledged
sinner."