the Sabbath! Honor labor, by maintaining inviolable that royal boon. Add to it rather than diminish from it; and that this day may be devoted to the highest of all recreation, that of the soul, remit some portion of the weekly task for recreating the other faculties of the laborer. Yes; honor labor, by remembering that man has other faculties than those which qualify him for manual toil. He has a head as well as a hand. He has an immortal principle, and was not made merely for drudgery on earth. Honor labor, then, by promoting in every way the happiness and welfare of the laborer. And to those whose toils have been our theme to-night let me say, "Walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called." Be sure that ye yourselves honor labor. Honor those departments of it which are more elevated than your own. Charity requires that we should all hope the best of our fellow-men; honor wealth, dignity, leisure, learning, not for themselves alone, but for the profitable purposes to which they are applied, for the great advantages which you yourselves derive from them. The same book which says, "Honor all men," and thus commands the wealthy and noble to honor you, says also, "Render to all their dues, custom to whom custom, tribute to whom tribute, honor to whom honor." If employers are to respect the employed, so also these are enjoined to "be obedient to their masters, not with eye service," but "showing all good fidelity." Walk worthy of your vocation. You have a noble escutcheon; disgrace it not by wickedness. There is nothing truly mean and low but sin: Stoop not from your lofty throne to defile yourselves by contamination with intemperance, licentiousness, or any form of evil. Labor allied with virtue may look up to heaven and not blush, while all worldly dignities, prostituted to vice, will leave their owner without a corner of the universe in which to hide his shame. You will most successfully prove the honorableness of toil by illustrating in your own persons its alliance with a sober, righteous, and godly life. This last word suggests my closing remark. The true dignity of labor can not be realized apart from godliness. Toil is honorable, because in harmony with the wise arrangements of a beneficent Creator; but the man who toils, adequately shares in this honor only by voluntary conformity with the great plan of the universe. The Gospel alone can effectually bring the mind into this conformity. Then the most menial offices become acts of solemn worship, when performed in thankful submission to the appointments of a gracious Providence. That grandest of all books, the working man's best charter, addressing even slaves, cheers them with the ennobling sentiment, "Ye serve the Lord. Christ." And shall any occupation which is lawful be regarded by you as drudg ery, if in it ye serve the King of kings? Shall any laborer regard his occupation as menial and degrading, if, by honest industry in the obscurest station, he is obeying his Maker and Redeemer? No; entertain a higher sense of the dignity which he has conferred on you in employing you in any way in the carrying out of his great plan; and be sure of this, that if the man of toil works in a spirit of obedient, loving homage to God, he does no less than cherubim and seraphim, in their loftiest flights and holiest songs. Yes; in the search after true dignity, you may point me to the sceptered prince, ruling over mighty empires; to the claimant of ancestral titles which raise him above the common herd of men; to the lord of broad acres teeming with fertility, or the owner of coffers bursting with gold; you may tell me of the man of learning, of the historian or the philosopher, of the poet or the artist; you may remind me of the man of science ex tracting from nature her invaluable secrets, or of the philanthropist, to whom the eyes of admiring multitudes may be turned; and while prompt to render to such men all the honor which, in varying degrees, may be their due, I would emphatically declare that neither power, nor nobility, nor wealth, nor learning, nor genius, nor benevolence, nor all combined, have a monopoly of dignity. I would take you to the dingy office, where day by day the pen plies its weary task, or to the retail shop, where, from early morning till half the world have sunk to sleep, toilsome attendance, with scarce an interval for food, and none for thought, is given to distribute the necessities and luxuries of life-I would descend further, I would take you to the plowman plodding along his furrows; to the mechanic throwing the swift shuttle, or tending the busy wheels; to the miner groping his darksome way in the deep caverns of the earth; to the man of the needle or the trowel, the hammer or the forge; and if, while he diligently prosecutes his humble toil, he looks up with a submissive, grateful, loving eye to heaven; if, in what he does, he recognizes his Master in the eternal God, and expects his wages from on high; if, while thus laboring on earth, anticipating the rest of heaven, he can say, as did a poor man, who, when commiserated on account of his humble lot, said, taking off his hat, "Sir, I am the son of a king; I am a child of God; and when I die, angels will carry me from this Union Workhouse direct to the court of heaven "—O, when I have shown you such a spectacle, I will ask, Is there not also dignity in toil? |