34 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



meant that he should be pleased with his mother talking nonsense to him. 

 It is expected that he will pull the plates from the table and smash his 

 toys. Their romp and noise may, and do, drive "weak-headed mothers 

 crazy." Yes, and it "aggravates the aggregate of the shoe bill." Oh, 

 and it makes terrific work with trowsers ! But, mark you, how surely it 

 makes men I Would you crush the child's spirit, or check him in his play? 

 What ! resist God's ordinance? Better my tongue cleave to the roof of 

 my mouth ; better my right hand forget its cunning. I'll do no such 

 thing ! Play for him is legitimate. The boy may have no purpose in his 

 pranks and play beyond present pleasure — but God has. The divine pur- 

 pose is definite and far-reaching. God means certain development of a 

 healthy and rounded organism ; and that means, in the near future, 

 efficient working men and women. 



But if the child-man should continue to jDlay on through youth to 

 manhood, he would surely drift into dissipation, thence into vice, and so 

 on into crime. The time comes, in the life of every individual reaching 

 manhood or womanhood, when earnest, honest work must be admitted as 

 a ministry of life. An idler, I was going to say, was not thought of in 

 God's plan. No provision was made for that class of men. They are 

 tramps and vagrants, and it was an after thought to spread a table for 

 them in the calaboose. 



On the other hand, a man that works and fodders like an animal 

 develops like an animal. And if our whole life is to be consumed utterly 

 in physical effort, what better are we than oxen, made to bear burdens? 

 Nay, in the comparison man appears to disadvantage. 



" Go thou, mock majesty," and bow to thy "superior of the stall." 

 They come into being, reach the perfection of fat cattle, are satisfied, and 

 die 1 Not so " reason's precious dower." Man lives in great imperfec- 

 tion here. He is filled with yearnings and discontents ; his hopes and 

 aspirations fail him ; confusion covers his face ; he dies and goes to 

 nothing — if so be there is no greater good than to sweat, and serve, and 

 gather into barns. Labor, considered as an end in itself, has no dignit}-. 

 Labor, without its compensation in somewhat beyond itself, is a curse. I 

 have not a word to say against labor in its office. Who works, and I do 

 not? And yet, work is not the all of life ; work is not the sublimest thing 

 in life. It is sad to know that there are multitudes who have nothing 

 better in life than what they get out of it through hard, exhaustive toiling. 

 Is gold the principal thing ? If you were starving in a desert place, could 

 mountains of gold serve you? You could not eat gold. You could not 

 sleep on nuggets of gold. Gold is worthless, except for what it can pur- 

 chase ; and so work, its synonym, has worth and dignity only for its min- 

 istry. If it makes no worthy achievements, then it is nothing — worse than 

 nothing, for then it has in it the elements of a curse. "In the sweat of 

 thy brow shalt thou eat bread." There is a deal of work without suitable 

 reward, either in this world or in the world to come. Work "intran- 

 sitive," work without an object, is "a monster, illegitimate in its origin 

 and unjustifiable in its existence." Work must bow to the ministries of 

 life; this is its office. Work was made for man, and not man for work. 



