Golden Gate District Fair Association. 247 



worth of the superstructure attests the wisdom of tliose wlio laid 

 heavy stones in the foundation in expectation of the rising walls and 

 lowers. The theme to which 1 ask your attention, is suggested by 

 the ])uri)Ose for which this Association has been formed, and by all 

 tlie objects by which we are sunoundcd, as we are here assembled; 

 a theme, in one aspect of it, with which J may be properly supposed 

 to have but little acquaintance, yet with which in another aspect I 

 am more familiar than with any other, namely— the worth of \vork. 

 If I mistake not, there is eminent occasion, just now, for consider- 

 ation of this theme, notwithstanding the changes that are so loudly 

 rung on the term, even by the class who say the most respecting it. 

 And rarely with the mass of our people there is occasion for serious 

 thought upon it, because of its relation to all real success. AVhat- 

 ever may have been the cause, there is prevailing among us a spirit 

 which holds work in contempt, which makes idleness respectable, 

 and which is leaving its mark of evil everywhere. There is an 

 inclination to live by one's wits, a^ it is called; to get money easily 

 and fast; to honor any means by which this may be done, until the 

 good old ways of patient industry and honest accumulation, which 

 have tlieir representatives in such a fair as this, are believed- by not 

 a few to be relics of- past times, by no means adapted to these days, 

 unless one is content to plod till he dies. Every situation that prom- 

 ises sui)port without toil is thronged with applicants — the trades are 

 avoided ; the farm is thought of only as a last resort, and most of the 

 means of living by actual effort, which were honored by our fathers, 

 are voted out of the list of worthy emi)loyments. The results of such 

 a prevalent feeling api^ear on every side, and they will be magnified 

 and multiplied until a change can be wrought in the popular senti- 

 ment on the subject. I do not doubt that one of the most formidable 

 barriers to social progress, one of the most serious difficulties con- 

 nected Avitli political affairs, exists in this disposition to exalt a man 

 who thinks he need have nothing to do, and which seeks to establish 

 grades of society according to tlie removes from hard, honest toil, 

 until a ])remium is really offered in i)ublic regard for physical and 

 mental sloth. To all this, at least in this place and with these sur- 

 roundings, you will i)ermit me to enter my earnest protest, not merely 

 as a Christian minister, but as a man with you ui)on the ordinary 

 ))lane of life. Were I to speak as a Christian minister alone, I should 

 find material enough for speech in the mere example of Him wiiom 

 I make my example and Lord. There is significance, not likely to 

 be over-estimated, in tlie fact that He spent thirty years amidst the 

 scenes of actual work. There is valuable instruction in the unwrit- 

 ten life of the boy, the young man. the industrious, mature mechanic 

 of Nazareth; as valuable of its kind as the precei)ts which He uttered 

 in His sermon afterward delivered on the Alount. There is worth to 

 us in that unknown shop where He learned and pursued His trade, 

 as real, if not as great, as in the Court of the Temple where He was 

 wont to i)roclaim His gospel. The lesson of those thirty years was 

 the necessity and dignity of work ; and it was fit that He who 

 designed to" leave His lii'e as a model, as well as His M'ords for a 

 guicie, should .si)end such a i)ortion of his time in so noble an illus- 

 tration of the si)irit of His gospel. It was God's seal to man's true 

 nobility ;. God's exhibition in life of what is worthy and best. So 

 that not onlv as a i)reacher of that gospel are these sentiments appro- 

 32 



