ANNUAL ADDEESS. 383 



earth, witli violence. The injunction to labor, with no command 

 to study or to fight, was repeated after the fall. In due time 

 God swept away the reign of war with the flood ; and instituted 

 a new era, under farmer Noah, and afterwards confounded the 

 reign of words, at the building of Babel. He called Abraham, 

 and from that great patriarch of farmers. He raised up a hardy 

 race ; inured them to severe labor under Egyptian task-masters, 

 and by them He colonized Judea, and ultimately founded the 

 only empire of peaceful agricultural laborers that subsisted in 

 ancient times. Care was here taken to give every man a flirm, 

 though no care was taken to give every man a sword or a book. 

 From this nation of workers, in due time " the Shiloah " came, as 

 a man of work — a mechanic — a carpenter, and a Nazarene — 

 the Great Exemplar, as well as the Apostle and Founder of the 

 reign of truth and work on earth. He never wore a helmet or 

 wrote a book, or wielded a sword or a pen. He walked through 

 the earth with his simple instruments of labor in his hands ; 

 overturned and confounded all former dynasties, both of war 

 and of words, and proclaimed His new kingdom of peace and 

 of work. He himself fought no mighty battles, and wrote no 

 mighty books, but he did perform many mighty works. He 

 declared that all men should be judged and valued on earth, 

 and judged and sentenced in heaven, not according to their pro- 

 fession, their creed, their rank, their station, their learning, 

 prowess, genius or power, but according to their works. He 

 chose twelve untitled and unlettered men, the hardy sons of the 

 lowest toil, with their fishers' coats and publican garments still 

 about them, as his special companions and apostles, to institute 

 that new kingdom of work, destined to overthrow all other 

 kingdoms of violence and fraud. He bid the despisers of all 

 ages "to behold, and wonder, and perish, because he wrought a 

 work in their day which they would not believe though one 

 should declare it unto them." 



How it happens, then, that an age of the world following such 

 illustrious precedents, obeying the guidance of this divine power 

 — an age eschewing the violence of war, and the deceits of dog- 

 mas, and relying for subsistence primarily upon the work of its 



