It
evokes and disciplines obedience, self-control, attention,
application, and perseverance; giving a man deftness and skill in
his special calling, and aptitude and dexterity in dealing with
the affairs of ordinary life.
Work is the law of our being--the living principle that carries
men and nations onward. The greater number of men have to work
with their hands, as a matter of necessity, in order to live; but
all must work in one way or another, if they would enjoy life as
it ought to be enjoyed.
Labour may be a burden and a chastisement, but it is also an
honour and a glory. Without it, nothing can be accomplished. All
that is great in man comes through work; and civilisation is its
product. Were labour abolished, the race of Adam were at once
stricken by moral death.
It is idleness that is the curse of man--not labour. Idleness
eats the heart out of men as of nations, and consumes them as rust
does iron. When Alexander conquered the Persians, and had an
opportunity of observing their manners, he remarked that they did
not seem conscious that there could be anything more servile than
a life of pleasure, or more princely than a life of toil.
When the Emperor Severus lay on his deathbed at York, whither he
had been borne on a litter from the foot of the Grampians, his
final watchword to his soldiers was, "LABOREMUS" (we must work);
and nothing but constant toil maintained the power and extended
the authority of the Roman generals.
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