Chapter 19: A Horse Which Carries a Halter Is Soon Caught

Chapter 19.
A Horse Which Carries a Halter is Soon Caught

With a few oats in a sieve the nag is tempted, and the groom soon catches him if he has his halter on; but the other horse, who has no rope dangling from his head, gives master Bob a sight of his heels, and away he scampers. To my mind, a man who drinks a glass or two, and goes now and then to the tap-room, is a horse with his bridle on, and stands a fair chance of being locked up in Sir John Barleycorn's stables, and made to carry Madame Drink and her habit. There's nothing like coming out fair and square, and standing as free as the air. Plenty will saddle you if they can catch you: don't give them the ghost of a chance. A bird has not got away as long as there is even a thread tied to its leg. In other concerns it is much the same. You can't get out of a bad way without leaving it altogether, bag and baggage. Half-way will never pay. One thing or the other: be an out-and-outer, or else keep in altogether. Shut up the shop and quit the trade if it is a bad one. To close the front shutters and serve customers at the back door is a silly attempt to cheat the devil, and it will never answer. Such hide-and-seek behavior shows that your conscience has just enough light for you to read your own condemnation by it. Mind what you are at; don't dodge like a rat.

I am always afraid of the tail end of a habit. A man who is always in debt will never be cured till he has paid the last quarter. When a clock says "tick" once it will say the same thing again unless it is quite stopped. Harry Higgins says he only owes for one week at the grocer's, and I am as sure as quarter-day that he will be over head and ears in debt before long. I tell him to clean off the old score and have done with it altogether. He says the storekeepers like to have him on their books, but I am quite sure no man in his senses dislikes ready money. I want him to give up the credit system, for if he does not he will need to outrun the constable.

Bad companions are to be left at once. There's no use in shilly-shallying. They must be told that we would sooner have their room than their company, and if they call again we must start them off with a flea in each ear. Somehow I can't get young fellows to come right out from the back lot; they think they can play with fire and not be burned. Scripture says, "Ye fools, when will ye be wise?"

"April the first stands mark'd by custom's rules, A day for being, and for making, fools;

But, pray, what custom, or what rule, supplies A day for making, or for being, wise?"

Nobody wants to keep a little measles or a slight degree of fever. We all want to be quit of disease; and so let us try to be rid of every evil habit. What wrong would it be right for us to stick to? Don't let us tempt the devil to tempt us. If we give Satan an inch, he will take a mile. As long as we carry his halter he counts us among his nags. Off with the halter! May the grace of God set us wholly free. Does not Scripture say, "Come out from among them, and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean thing"?