Fable LXVIII There’s No To-morrow
A Man, who had lived a very profligate life, at length being awakened by the lively representations of a sober friend on the apprehensions of a feverish indisposition, promised that he would heartily set about his reformation, and that To-morrow he would seriously begin it. But the symptoms going off, and that To-morrow coming, he still put it off till the next, and so he went on from one To-morrow to another; but still he continued his reprobate life. This his friend observing, said to him, I am very much concerned to find how little effect my disinterested advice has upon you: But, my friend, let me tell you, that since your To-morrow never comes, nor do you seem to intend it shall, I will believe you no more, except you set about your repentance and amendment this very moment: for, to say nothing of your repeated broken promises, you must consider, that the time that is past is no more; that To-morrow is not OURS; and the present NOW is all we have to boast of.
Morals
That compunction of heart cannot be sincere, which takes not immediate effect, and can be put off till To-morrow. The friend’s closing observation in the Fable is so good a moral, that we need add nothing to it.
Eager to mend, and brookless of delay,
Sincere repentance waits no future day;
The present moment only is allow’d;
Uncertain hopes and fears to-morrow shroud.
Reflection
Whoever considers this emblem, will find it to be his own case; we promise, and we put off, and we sin, and go on sinning: but still, as our conscience checks us for it, we take up faint purposes, and half resolutions, to do so no more, and to lead a new life for the future. Thus, with the young fellow here, we indulge ourselves in our pleasures from time to time; and when we have trifled away our lives, day after day, from one To-morrow to another, that same To-morrow never comes. This is the sluggard’s plea and practice; the libertine’s, the miser’s; and in short, whose is it not? Now, if we would but consider the vanity and vexation of a lewd course of life; the impiety first of entering into vows, which we intend beforehand not to perform, and afterward of breaking them; the folly and the presumption of undertaking anything that is wholly out of our power; the necessity of improving every moment of our lives; the desperate and the irreparable hazard of losing opportunities; we should not venture body and soul upon the necessity of a procrastinated repentance, and postpone the most certain duties of a man, and of a Christian; for there is no To-morrow, nor anything, in truth, but the present instant, that we can call our own.