DIGNITY OF LABOR. 61 



is coming ; already we speak of the dignity of labor, and that 

 phrase is any tiling but an idle and unmeaning one ; it is a true 

 gospel to the man who takes in its full meaning ; the nation 

 that understands it is free, and independent, and great. The 

 dignity of labor is but another name for liberty. The chivalry 

 of labor is now the battle cry of the old world, and the new. 

 We hear it from England, great, brave old England ; sometimes, 

 too, though more faintly and doubtfully, from sorrowful, strug- 

 gling Italy. Cherish these brave, brave thoughts, then, in your 

 hearts; let those noble words, the dignity of labor, be your 

 battle cry, as you fight the battle of life. The age proclaims 

 these truths at last; but nature, the green fields, the waving' 

 harvests, proclaimed them long ago. Ask your corn fields to 

 what mysterious power they do homage and pay tribute, and 

 they will answer, to labor. In a thousand forms nature repeats 

 the truth, that the laborer alone is what we call respectable — 

 is alone worthy of praise, and honors, and rewards. In other 

 years, men paid almost divine honors to the successful heroes 

 in their bloody wars ; the soldiers returned homo in stately 

 procession, and triumphal arches were built in their honor, 

 with silken banners fluttering from their sides, and bright 

 garlands adorning their sculptured stones. These splendid 

 structures were the tribute which man in those by-gone days 

 paid to the victorious soldier ; but nature does honor to her 

 peaceful soldier still, and as every humble laborer seeks hi* 

 home at nightfall, a more majestic arch of triumph soars above 

 him, and he marches bravely forward, conscious of a day of 

 duty, and of successful toil, under that eternal arch, which was 

 buiided when the foundations of the great deep were laid. 

 The sunset flings silken banners of crimson and gold along its 

 stately sides, and the constellations from its deep blue vaults 

 hang garlands there in clusters of those holy stars which are 

 the perennial flowers of heaven. 



Our fathers had this lesson of life, this lesson of self-respect, 

 this lesson of the value, the nobility, the dignity of labor, 

 taught to them in earnest long ago. The wide ocean divided 

 them from royal power, and from the bonds of wealth and 

 rank and custom ; the woods and the forest taught them to work 

 if they would live ; taught them, too, that the man who 

 changed the wild wood and the dreary marsh to a happy 



