ADDRESS. 46 



unbar her everlasting ordinations, to dispel the illusions of 

 his unrighteous prosperity with a miracle ; but none the 

 less does she carry the scourge in her hand, and keep her 

 eye on him till his time. 



Christianity is the patron of his labor, ar.d ever has 

 been. While she was shut up in monasteries, it is true 

 she had no chance to breathe on him her benediction. 

 But the moment she was let free from the bondages of 

 that false guardianship, and walked forth in the immortal 

 beauty of her freedom and love, she spoke graciously to 

 the toilsman, and exalted labor. Again the common 

 people heard the Master gladly. The Protestant refor- 

 mation was the charter of emancipated handicrafts as well 

 as the Pentecost of a free church. It stretched its hand 

 over the tilled fields of Northern Europe, and industry 

 woke to a new and nobler life. Thenceforth Christian 

 literature spoke in honor of agriculture, not with the ef- 

 feminate sentiment, the dainty rhetoric, and patronizing 

 pastorals of Pagan classics. Virgil and Theocritus did not 

 know how to glorify work in its influence on character. 

 It was only under Revelation, that the dignity which 

 heathendom had accorded to hands red with human blood 

 began to be transferred to hands stained with the soil. 

 But ever since the ladder of light sprang from beside the 

 Patriarch's head in the stony pasture of Bethel, the Bible 

 has striven to show the husbandman that all his fields 

 open upward into heaven. 



Our believing ancestry knew what the corner-ston,e of 

 civilization is. Learn from them, that your acres will lie 

 in the light of the Father s smile, only as they lie un- 

 profaned in the light of Sabbath mornings, only as the 

 church bell rings over their still glebe and resting " cattle 

 on a thousand hills," only as you and your children go 

 reverently up from them to the confessions of the sanctuary. 

 Your waving grain, and ripening corn, and growing herds, 

 will never wear such beauty, as when you pass them on 

 your grateful way to the courts of praise. Make the 

 growing wealth of your better industry to adorn and en- 

 large the outward temples of the Living God. The temple 



