Thrift | Page 4

effects of human skill and labour. These effects were not transmitted by learning, but by teaching and example. One generation taught another, and thus art and handicraft, the knowledge of mechanical appliances and materials, continued to be preserved. The labours and efforts of former generations were thus transmitted by father to son; and they continue to form the natural heritage of the human race--one of the most important instruments of civilization.
Our birthright, therefore, consists in the useful effects of the labours of our forefathers; but we cannot enjoy them unless we ourselves take part in the work. All must labour, either with hand or head. Without work, life is worthless; it becomes a mere state of moral coma. We do not mean merely physical work. There is a great deal of higher work--the work of action and endurance, of trial and patience, of enterprise and philanthropy, of spreading truth and civilization, of diminishing suffering and relieving the poor, of helping the weak, and enabling them to help themselves.
"A noble heart," says Barrow, "will disdain to subsist, like a drone, upon others' labours; like a vermin to filch its food out of the public granary; or, like a shark, to prey upon the lesser fry; but it will rather outdo his private obligations to other men's care and toil, by considerable service and beneficence to the public; for there is no calling of any sort, from the sceptre to the spade, the management whereof, with any good success, any credit, any satisfaction, doth not demand much work of the head, or of the hands, or of both."
Labour is not only a necessity, but it is also a pleasure. What would otherwise be a curse, by the constitution of our physical system becomes a blessing. Our life is a conflict with nature in some respects, but it is also a co-operation with nature in others. The sun, the air, and the earth are constantly abstracting from us our vital forces. Hence we eat and drink for nourishment, and clothe ourselves for warmth.
Nature works with us. She provides the earth which we furrow; she grows and ripens the seeds that we sow and gather. She furnishes, with the help of human labour, the wool that we spin and the food that we eat. And it ought never to be forgotten, that however rich or poor we may be, all that we eat, all that we are clothed with, all that shelters us, from the palace to the cottage, is the result of labour.
Men co-operate with each other for the mutual sustenance of all. The husbandman tills the ground and provides food; the manufacturer weaves tissues, which the tailor and seamstress make into clothes; the mason and the bricklayer build the houses in which we enjoy household life. Numbers of workmen thus contribute and help to create the general result.
Labour and skill applied to the vulgarest things invest them at once with precious value. Labour is indeed the life of humanity; take it away, banish it, and the race of Adam were at once stricken with death. "He that will not work," said St. Paul, "neither shall he eat;" and the apostle glorified himself in that he had laboured with his own hands, and had not been chargeable to any man.
There is a well-known story of an old farmer calling his three idle sons around him when on his deathbed, to impart to them an important secret. "My sons," said he, "a great treasure lies hid in the estate which I am about to leave to you." The old man gasped. "Where is it hid?" exclaimed the sons in a breath. "I am about to tell you," said the old man; "you will have to dig for it----" but his breath failed him before he could impart the weighty secret; and he died. Forthwith the sons set to work with spade and mattock upon the long neglected fields, and they turned up every sod and clod upon the estate. They discovered no treasure, but they learnt to work; and when fields were sown, and the harvests came, lo! the yield was prodigious, in consequence of the thorough tillage which they had undergone. Then it was that they discovered the treasure concealed in the estate, of which their wise old father had advised them.
Labour is at once a burden, a chastisement, an honour, and a pleasure. It may be identified with poverty, but there is also glory in it. It bears witness, at the same time, to our natural wants and to our manifold needs. What were man, what were life, what were civilization, without labour? All that is great in man comes of labour;--greatness in art, in literature, in science. Knowledge--"the wing wherewith we fly to heaven"--is only acquired through labour. Genius is but