Hope
Charles Spurgeon · John Ploughman's Talk; or, Plain Advice for Plain People
EGGS are eggs, but some are rotten ;
and so hopes are hopes, but many of
them are delusions. Hopes are like women,
there is a touch of angel about them all, but
there are two sorts. My boy Tom has
been blowing a lot of birds'-eggs, and
threading them on a string; I have been
doing the same thing with hopes, and here's
a few of them, good, bad, and indifferent.
The sanguine man's hope pops up in a
moment like jack-in-the-box ; it works with
a spring, and does not go by reason. When-
ever this man looks out of the window he
sees better times coming, and although it
is nearly all in his own eye, and nowhere
else, yet to see plum puddings in the moon
is a far more cheerful habit than croaking
at everything like a two-legged frog. This
is the kind of brother to be on the road
with on a pitch-dark night, when it pours
with rain, for he carries candles in his eyes
and a fireside in his heart. Beware of being
misled by him, and then you may safely
keep his company. His fault is that he
counts his chickens before they are hatched,
and sells his herrings before they are in the
' (131)
132 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK.
net. All his sparrow's-eggs are bound to
turn into thrushes, at the least, if not par-
tridges and pheasants. Summer has fully
come, for he has seen one swallow. He is
sure to make his fortune at his new shop,
for he had not opened the door five min-
utes before two of the neighbors crowded
in, one of them wanted a loaf of bread on
trust, and the other asked change for a shil-
ling. He is certain that the squire means
to give him his custom, for he saw him
reading the name over the shop door as he
rode past. He does not believe in slips be-
tween cups and lips, but makes certainties
out of perhapses. Well, good soul, though
he is a little soft at times, there is much in
him to praise, and I like to think of one of
his odd sayings, " Never say die till you are
dead, and then it's no use, so let it alone.,,
There are other odd people in the world,
you see, besides John Ploughman.
My neighbor Shiftless is waiting for his
aunt to die, but the old lady has as many
lives as nine cats, and my notion is that
when she does die she will leave her little
money to the Hospital for Diseased Cats or
Stray Dogs, sooner than her nephew Jack
(133)
134 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK,
shall have it. Poor creature, he is dread-
fully down at the heel, and lays it all on the
dear old lady's provoking constitution. How-
ever, he hopes on, and gets worse and
worse, for while the grass grows the horse
starves. He pulls at a long rope who waits
for another's death; he who hunts after
legacies had need have iron shoes. He that
waits for dead men's shoes may long go
barefoot ; he who waits for his uncle's cow
need not be in a hurry to spread the but-
ter. He who lives on hope has a slim diet.
If Jack Shiftless had never had an aunt he
might have tucked up his shirt sleeves and
worked for himself, but they told him that
he was born with a silver spoon in his
mouth, and that made a spoon of him, so
that he is no more use at work than a cow
at catching hares. If anybody likes to leave
John Ploughman a legacy, he will be very
much obliged to them, but they had better
not tell him of it for fear he should not
plough so straight a furrow ; they had bet-
ter make it twice as much, and take him by
surprise. On the whole, it would be better
to leave it to the Pastors* College or the
Stockwell Orphanage, for it will be well
HOPE. 135
used in either case. Did you notice the
drawings of these two places a page or two
back? Fix them well in your mind's eye.
But now we must get back to our subject.
I wish people would think less about wind-
falls, and plant more apple trees. Hopes
that grow out of graves are grave mistakes ;
and when they cripple a man's own ener-
gies, they are a sort of hangman's rope,
dangling round a man's neck.
Some people were born on the first of
April, and are always hoping without sense
or reason. Their ship is to come home, they
are to dig up a pot of gold, or to hear of
something to their advantage. Poor sillies,
they have wind on the brain, and dream
while they are awake. They may hold
their mouths open a long while before fried
ham and eggs will come flying into them,
and yet they really seem to believe that
some stroke of luck, some windfall of golden
apples, will one day set them up and make
gentlemen of them. They hope to ride in
their coaches, and by-and-by find them-
selves shut up in a place where the coaches
won't run over them. You may whistle a
long while before goldfinches will hop on
136 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK,
to your thumb. Once in a while one man
in a million may stumble against a fortune,
but thousands ruin themselves by idle ex-
pectations. Expect to get half of what you
earn, a quarter of what is your due, and
none of what you have lent, and you will
be near the mark ; but to look for a fortune
to fall from the moon is to play the fool
with a vengeance. A man ought to hope
within the bounds of reason and the prom-
ises of the good old Book. Hope leans on
an anchor, but an anchor must have some-
thing to hold by and to hold to. A hope
without grounds is a tub without a bottom,
a horse without a head, a goose without a
body, a shoe without a sole, a knife without
a blade. Who but Simple Simon would be-
gin to build a house at the top ? there must
be a foundation. Hope is no hope, but
sheer folly, when a man hopes for impossi-
bilities, or looks for crops without sowing
seed, and for happiness without doing good.
Such hopes lead to great boast and small
roast ; they act like a jack-o'-lantern, and
lead men into the ditch. There's poor Will
at the workhouse, who always declares that
he owns a great estate, only the right owner
HOPE. 137
keeps him out of it ; his name is Jenyns, or
Jennings, and somebody of that name he
says has left enough money to buy the
Bank of England, and one day he is to have
a share of it ; but meanwhile poor Will
finds the parish broth poor stuff for such a
great gentleman's stomach ; he has prom-
ised me an odd thousand or two when he
gets his fortune, and I am going to build a
castle in the air with it, and ride to it on a
broomstick. Poor soul, like a good many
others, he has windmills in his head, and
may make his will on his thumbnail for
anything that he has to give. Depend upon
it, ploughing the air is not half so profitable
as it is easy : he who hopes in this world
for more than he can get by his own earn-
ings hopes to find apricots on a crab-tree.
He who marries a slovenly, dressy girl, and
hopes to make her a good wife, might as
well buy a goose and expect it to turn out
a milch cow. He who takes his boys to the
beershop, and trusts that they will grow up
sober, puts his coffee-pot on the fire and ex-
pects to see it look bright as new tin. Men
cannot be in their senses when they brew
with bad malt and look for good beer, or
138 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK.
set a wicked example and reckon upon
raising a respectable family. You may hope
and hope till your heart grows sick ; but
when you send your boy up the chimney,
he'll come down black for all your hoping.
Teach a child to lie, and then hope that he
will grow up honest ; better put a wasp in
a tar barrel and wait till he makes you
honey. When will people act sensibly with
their boys and girls ? Not till they are
sensible themselves.
As to the next world, it is a great pity
that men do not take a little more care
when they talk of it. If a man dies drunk,
somebody or other is sure to say, " I hope
he is gone to heaven." It is all very well
to wish it, but to hope it is another thing.
Men turn their faces to hell and hope to
get to heaven ; why don't they walk into
the horsepond, and hope to be dry ? Hopes
of heaven are solemn things, and should be
tried by the word of God. A man might
as well hope, as our Lord says, to gather
grapes of thorns or figs of thistles as look for
a happy hereafter at the end of a bad life.
There is only one rock to build good hopes
on, and that is not Peter, as the pope says,
HOPE. 139
neither is it sacraments, as the old Roman
beast's cubs tell us, but the merits of the
Lord Jesus. All the hope of man is in
" the man Christ Jesus." If we believe in
him we are saved, for it is written u he that
believeth in him hath everlasting life." Mind
he has it now, and it is everlasting, so that
there is no fear of his losing it. There John
Ploughman rests, and he is not afraid of
being confounded, for this is a firm footing,
and gives him a hope sure and steadfast,
which neither life nor death can shake ;
but John must not turn preacher, or he may-
take the bread out of the parson's mouth,
so please remember that presumption is a
ladder which will break the mounter's neck,
and don't try it, as you love your soul.