481 
The Ministry op Toil. 
All praise to the wise mother-love and ingenious mother-thought 
that shall so employ the busy little head and hands that the early 
impulse of the child shall grow into the settled purpose of the 
man. 
While plants, under the stimulus of sunshine and moisture, 
gladly toil the whole summer through, and beast, bird, and insect, 
4 ' ' 
guided by instincts that never err, joyfully labor in self-support, 
can it be that to man alone, of all animate objects, labor is a curse, 
to all other living things a joy and a blessing? 
There is no exception here. Work is a universal and beneficent 
law of life. It builds up everywhere. It is the condition of all 
growth, physical and spiritual. Is it seen to produce beauty and 
perfection in plant and animal life; so will it in human life, if the 
individual life-force is left as free and untrammeled in its operation. 
The demand for exercise, which finds its best satisfaction in use¬ 
ful labor, is as imperative as that for food. We must eat to live, 
but if we eat rationally we forget the necessity of the thing in the 
pleasure of it; so may it be with work. 
Let us shake off the superstitious belief that labor is a curse, and 
cease to reproach our first parents as though, by reason of their sin, 
they had done us a personal injury in transmitting to us an inherit¬ 
ance of toil. Adam and Eve were put in the garden of Eden to 
dress and tend it; they were not to be idlers even there. They w T ere 
sent forth in disgrace to be sure, but had they remained, who can 
suppose that among the innumerable heirs it would be our good 
fortune to retain the original homestead? Some of us in that fast¬ 
growing family must have been pioneers, and in any case we could 
scarce wish to look upon a fairer scene than lies spread out before 
the dwellers of our lake-encircled city. Coming out, then, from un¬ 
der the shadow of this old-time curse, let us consider the ministrv of 
toil. And first of all, it is work that gives significance to life, our 
w r ork that gives to the life of each one of us its meaning, and in 
proportion to the .importance of the work and our adaptation to it, 
will be the fulness and completeness of our life. The what-for and 
the worth-while of life offer problems that puzzle many a philosoph¬ 
ic idler, who, finding no solution, as of necessity from his posi¬ 
tion he cannot, grows bitter and cynical. But the humblest toiler, 
as he with dinner-pail in hand passes by in early morning, whist- 
31 -A 
