AGRICULTURAL HEART-WORK. 25 



use to try to persuade people that tliey arc mistaken in the 

 matter. You must not undertake to deal with the members of 

 a farmer's househokl, as avc sometimes deal with whimsical 

 children, telling them that they are not sick, and will be better 

 by and by. Farmers, male and female, must work, and must 

 make up their minds to it. And to do it cheerfully, they must 

 have their attention directed to the advantages and blessings of 

 their particular calling in life. The labor that wearies them, 

 prepares them to enjoy the rest that refreshes them. They earn 

 their bread with the sweat of their brow ; but they gain also 

 the healthy appetite that luxury always wants. They are free 

 from those cares and anxieties which are inseparable from the 

 life of the mechanic, the trader and the professional man. You 

 can distress those who are engaged in these pursuits, but you 

 cannot pinch or starve the farmer. Work may fail the mechanic 

 — trade may take new channels, and the merchant may be left 

 high and dry — a distressingly healthy time may come, and the 

 physician's drugs be left to grow mouldy — the lawyer may find 

 that there is no fight in his neighbors, nor fees in his pocket, 

 and the clergyman, most to be pitied of all, finds that " a- vica- 

 rious sacrifice " must be made, whether it forms a part of his 

 theology or not. But the farmer may quote St. Paul's Avords, 

 with all St. Paul's self-reliance : " I say none of these things 

 move me." Nor is it a dogged animal resistance that the 

 farmer makes to these common afflictions that flesh is heir to. 

 It need not be in insensibility to suffering, that he finds his ease 

 and comfort. His position and calling open to him the most 

 direct avenues to the intellectual and spiritual development of 

 himself, and the education of his family. The mechanic must 

 spend the entire day in the midst of his tools and his journey- 

 men. Trade and commerce require the undivided application 

 of a man's energies, for as great a length of time as nature can 

 endure ; and the professional man can only incidentally do an 3^ 

 thing for the cultivation of his own higher tastes and the 

 instruction of his children. And so of the farmer; there are 

 times and seasons when he too must labor from " early morn to 

 dewy eve." But this excessive application is only periodical, 

 and is followed by intervals of comparative leisure, Avhen social 

 pleasures may be enjoyed and domestic duties be leisurely per- 

 formed. And in this connection, let it be remembered, that 



