Chapter 23: Don't Put The Cart Before The Horse

Chapter 23.
Don't Put the Cart Before the Horse

Nobody will ever take that fellow to be a Solomon. He has no more sense than a sucking turkey. His wit will never kill him, but he may die for want of it. One would think that he does not know which side of himself goes first, or which end should be uppermost, for he is putting the cart before the horse. However, he is not the only fool in the world, for nowadays you can't shake your coat out of a window without dusting an idiot. You have to ask yourself what will be the next new piece of foolery.

Amusing blunders will happen. Down at our chapel we only have evening meetings on moonlight nights, for some of our friends would never find their way home down our lanes of a dark night. It is a long lane that has no turning, but ours have plenty of turnings, and are quite as long as one likes them when it is pitch dark, for the trees meet over your head and won't let a star peep through. What did our old clerk do the other Sunday but give notice that there would be no moon next Wednesday night in consequence of there being no service! He put the cart before the horse that time. So it was with the young parson, of very fine ideas, who tried to make us poor clodhoppers see the wisdom of Providence in making the great rivers run near the large towns, while our village had a small brook to suit the size of it. We had a quiet laugh at the good man as we walked home through the corn, and we wondered why it never occurred to him that the Thames was in its bed long before London was up, and our tiny stream ran through its winding ways long before a cottager dipped his pail into it.

Dick Widgeon had a married daughter who brought her husband as pretty a baby as one might wish to see. When it was born, a neighbor asked the old man whether it was a boy or a girl.

"Dear, dear," said Dick, "here's a kettle of fish! I'm either a grandfather or a grandmother, and I'm sure I don't know which."

Dick says his mother was an Irishman, but I do not believe it.

All this is fun, but some of this blundering leads to mischief. Lazy fellows ruin their trade, and then say that bad trade ruined them.

Some fellows talk at random, as if they lived in a world turned upside down, for they always put things the wrong side up. A serving-man lost his situation through his drunken ways; and, as he could get no character, he charged his old master with being his ruin. The man was his own downfall, and now he blames those who speak the truth about him. "He mistakes the effect for the cause," as our old schoolmaster says, and blames the bucket for the faults of the well. The other day a fellow said to me, "Don't you think Jones is a lucky chap?"

"No," said I, "I think he is a hard-working man, and gets on because he deserves it."

"Ah," was the man's answer, "don't tell me; he has got a good trade, and a capital shop, and a fair capital, and I don't wonder that he makes money."

Bless the man's heart! Jones began with nothing, in a little, poking shop, and all he has was scraped together by hard labor and careful saving. The shop would never have kept him if he had not kept the shop, and he would have had no trade if he had not been a good tradesman. But there, it's no use talking. Some people will never allow that thrift and temperance lead to thriving and comfort, for this would condemn themselves. So to quiet their consciences they put the cart before the horse. A very bad case of putting the cart before the horse is when a drinking old man talks as if he had been kept out of the grave by his beer, though that is the thing which carries people to their last home. He happens to have a strong constitution, and so he can stand the effects of drink better than most, and then folks say it was the drink which gave him the constitution. When an old soldier comes alive out of battle, do we think that the shot and shell saved his life? When we meet with a man who is so strong that he can be a great drinker and still seem little the worse, we must not say that he owes his strength to his beer, or we shall be putting the plough before the oxen. When a man thinks that he is to make himself good before he comes to Jesus to be saved, he is planting the fruit instead of the root, and putting the chimney-pots where the foundation should be. We do not save ourselves and then trust the Savior; but when the Savior has worked salvation in us, then we work it out with fear and trembling. Be sure, good reader, that you put faith first, and work afterward; for, if not, you will put the cart before the horse.