---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Hale, Heber Q.
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 17
number: 6
published: 1914-04
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Heber Q. Hale, "Laziness," *Improvement Era* 17, no. 6 (April 1914): 523–526.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera176unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera176unse
start_page: 523
end_page: 526
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1914-04)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera176unse
  publication_year: 1914
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1914, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# Laziness

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Laziness
BY HEBER Q. HALE, PRESIDENT OF THE BOISE STAKE OF THE CHURCH
OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS
"Thou shalt not be idle; for he that is idle shall not eat the bread
nor wear the garments of the laborer." — (Doc. and Cov. 42:42.)
Our text, taken from the Doctrine and Covenants, the same
being a compilation of the revelations given to the Prophet Joseph
Smith, suggests two characters — the idler and the laborer; and it
further suggests the social relationship between the two characters,
namely : the idler shall not live from the fruits of the toil of the
laborer.
Idleness, in the sense the term is used in our text, suggests
laziness. Now, to my mind there are three kinds of laziness :
First, there are the physically lazy.
Second, there are the mentally lazy.
Third, there are the spiritually lazy.
Laziness is a disease and you will seldom find a person who
is not afflicted with it more or less, in at least one of the three
forms mentioned. Pity the man, however, who shows symptoms
in any two forms of the disease, and he is altogether lost if he has
all three!
The disease of laziness is somewhat like the smallpox. Both
diseases start on a weak backbone and manifest themselves very
visibly on the person ; but if they go in on you, they are ofttimes
fatal. There is one encouraging feature about these diseases —
both can be vaccinated against. There is a little difference, however, in the formula of the vaccine used. For smallpox you
inject into the blood a vaccine-lymph made from cowpox. For
laziness you inject a compound of equal parts of backbone, sand,
and gunpowder.
If any of you doubt that laziness is a disease, let me cite you
to a dictionary or an encyclopedia for a definition of the word. I
asked a doctor, the other day, the question: "What is disease?"
He replied : "Incapacity to react under the stimulus of environment." I said to myself: "That is just what laziness is" I
next went to Foster's Medical Dictionary and got this definition :
*An address delivered by President Heber Q. Hale, September 28,
1913, before the newly organized Y. M. and Y. L. Mutual Improvement
Associations. The address was given prior to the recent organization
of the stake, at the time when President Hale was the presiding elder
of the Boise Branch. — Editors.

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524 IMPROVEMENT ERA
"Disease is any departure from, failure in, or perversion of, normal
physiological action in the material constitution or functional integrity of the living organism." Here again I found the best kind
of a definition for laziness. Reduced to simple terms, this definition means quitting work, — and that is the surest sign of laziness.
When the heart or the liver or the stomach refuses to do its work,
you say the particular organ is diseased. Now, when man refuses
to do his work, I say he is diseased.
There is a universal law in operation in this world from which
we read that inactivity breeds inertia — disuse brings ultimate loss
of power to act. Failure to use finger, function or faculty, will
result in a speedy decay and uselessness. Idleness not only leads
to utter uselessness, but too often to positive evil and crime.
During a period of recent years an eastern organization for
the prevention of crime, collected data regarding the final destiny
of 20,000 boys, ranging in age from 12 to 18 years, all of whom
suffered from that common disease, laziness, which I have just described. Hear the results : 2,000 eventually saw the error of their
downward course and turned right-about-face, and became useful
and respected citizens; 1,000 were committed to insane asylums;
7,000 were sent to reformatories ; 9,700 were classified as derelicts
and paupers. In considering these startling statistics it should be
remembered that the 20,000 boys were not chosen from the slums,
but from respectable homes. It is further stated that over $20,-
000,000 are annually expended in the United States for the maintenance of reformatories, industrial institutions, and prisons in
which only lazy boys are kept.
Dr. Albert von Bergman, of Berlin, the noted German scientist, who has made a special study of the lazy boy, has this to say :
"No one is born naturally lazy. One born indolent and inactive is
already diseased by some other cause than laziness. The chronically
lazy boy is at the start as healthy as the average child, but, as he continues to refuse to do his work in school, his duties at home, his labor
in shop and field, a great physical change takes place in him. He
physically becomes so that he cannot help being lazy except under
powerful curative treatment.
"The motor muscles and joints of his feet soften, as do those of
the legs and hands. The powers of perception of the brain are dull,
and thought becomes sluggish and non-creative. The eye is dulled
and performs only about half the functions it should. The ear misses
many sounds and thus weakens the strength of its possessor. Although
slower in its development, there is as much disintegration in a lazy
boy's body as in the frame of one attacked with a malignant disease.
"Gradually this physical change passes into the soul, and the
beautiful inspirations given by God to all new-born beings change
under human influence to criminal instincts. Society receives them,
the boy beggar, the boy thief, the boy sloth. Nothing is left to do
with him but to lock him up or drive him from town to town until
death releases him from his uselessness."

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LAZINESS 525
It is obviously apparent that laziness is a physical disability, a
disease, and should be considered and treated as such. Children
so afflicted should be skilfully handled, and that at once.
"The idler shall not eat the bread nor xvcar the garments of the
laborer."
The common acceptation of this phrase is best expressed in
the language of Capt. John Smith, the early Virginia colonist, who
declared : "He who will not work shall not eat." But I see in
these words also a higher interpretation.
The laggard (or physically lazy) knows nothing of the exhilaration which comes to the man who arises at the break of day,
when the dew is yet upon the grass and the breath of morning
wafts cooly upon his cheek. He has never felt the joy which
dwells in the heart of the man who works, the man who thinks,
the man who hears and sees and feels and acts — of the man who
can look back upon Work successfully done. He has never had
the satisfaction of arriving on time, or of feeling the pride which
comes to the man who can say : "I have accomplished something." With his soft muscles and sluggish blood, he does not
even experience the lesser joy and blessing of physical excellence.
Of this bread he shall not eat.
Inspiration comes not to the inactive, the inert, the sluggard
(the mentally lazy), but to the plodder. To the sluggard is attributed no invention, no discovery, no painting, no poem. From
the stagnant pool of his mind come only stale and lifeless utterances upon his putrid breath. To him the field and the forest have
no voice — the flowers do not speak to him — his heart is not
touched by sweet music — books have no voice which he can hear —
the great fields of science, art and literature reveal no footprints
of his. He has never asked — he has never knocked ; he has, therefore, received nothing, and nothing has been opened up to him.
Nature's wonderful book remains closed before his unwilling eyes
and his famished brain shrivels to decay. Of this bread he shall
not eat.
The spiritually lazy knows no God. His untrained ear cannot
catch the whisper of the "still small voice" — his benumbed soul
has never felt the thrill of inspiration. He may look up — he may
fall down and worship, but what does he really know? What
meaning has life to him? What relationship does he bear toward
his fellowmen? How does he stand as against the world beyond?
Of his own three-fold self he is ignorant. He has found his
stomach and perhaps his heart, but his soul he has never discovered. He never opened the door to the hand of Omnipotence.
The divine spark in him has never flamed. His degenerate self
has never been regenerated- Of the true bread of life he has not
partaken. Of this bread he shall not eat.
Hand to him the ten commandments and he will only see :

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526 IMPROVEMENT ERA
"But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it
thou shalt not do any work." Give him the Lord's prayer and he
will only pray : "Give us this day our daily bread."
The commandment thundered down from Sinai begins : "Six
days shalt thou labor." Alas, too many of us look to the day of
rest and think by observing it we have fully lived up to the commandment. We lose sight of the fact that we are required to
precede that day of rest with six days of labor.
We pray : "Give us this day our daily bread." My friends,
if it be loaves we pray for, we pray in vain, as you yourselves can
testify. We do not pray simply: "Forgive us our debts," but
add : "as we forgive our debtors." In the latter case we expect
to receive only in the measure that we give. Does not the same
rule apply also in the former case? Daily bread and all other
necessities and joys of life come to us in the measure of our own
activities and application of the opportunities and resources at
hand. To whom much is given, much is expected. If we improve our talents, they shall be added to ; but if we fail to improve
them, they shall be taken away. Disuse is as much an abuse as
misuse. Inactivity brings loss of power.
It is positive virtue in a man that counts — and virtues become
positive only as they have been tempered in the crucible of temptation. The rough sea makes the sailor — labor makes muscle —
thoughts build the brain — man grows in service. The greatest
men of all ages have been the world's greatest servants- The
world needs leaders in every line of activitv. We have too many
followers. The earth is elastic under the feet of the worker ; but
it groans under the feet of the sluggard. No one has respect for
an idler — no one loves him.
"One monster there is in the world," said Thomas Carlyle :
"the idle man. Looking up, looking down, around, behind or before," he continued, "discernest thou * * * any idle hero,
saint, god, or even devil? Not a vestige of one. In the heavens,
in the earth, in the waters under the earth, is none like unto thee.
Thou art an original figure in this creation."
The gospel of Christ, as understood by the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints, contemplates work. In it there is no
place for drones. "The idler shall have no place in the Church,"
says one of our scriptures. "Six days shalt thou labor" appeals
to us just as strongly as "one day shalt thou rest." The trail
across the desert into these western mountains, the transformation
of a barren wilderness into fruitful fields and happy homes, speak
in a language more eloquent and convincing than tongue can
utter in support of the industrious life of the Church. Joseph
Smith, its founder under God, said : "Man cannot be saved in
ignorance." Man is saved from the ills of the flesh, from the
superstitions and errors of the mind to the extent of his knowledge