Notes of a sermon preached by the Rev. C. E, Darwent in Union Church, Tientsin, Sunday evening, Sept.. Text: Proverbs XIV. 93. "In all labour there is profit."
There is a subject that I have had on my mind for a long time. Iam reminded of it every day that I read the papers, I may be accused of being a hard kind of person but I do not think I am. The subject contained in the title of this sermon, "The modern cursing of work," the almost universal effort to get work cut down. I do nob) think that I am bringing a railing accusation against this generation in stating that this is the case, We read in Genesis that "in the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat they bread." We take that to be a ¢tatement that work is a curse and a punishment. don't think it means that at all. It is a statement of a fact. It is 30; and a good thing it is so. We enjoy our bread better when we have sweated for it, There is an appalling distaste for work. I don't, see how anyone can deny it.
This book of Proverbs is too strenuous for us and we don't read it. Neither is Mrs. Browning's "Aurora Leigh" popular. She says, "Get work, this better than what you work to get," or something like that. Nefther is, Carlyle read as much ae he used to be, more's the pity; is it because ho says, "know thy work and do it?" Ho is full of the praise of work as a good thing steel'. Are we? I am sure this is not the teaching we like to-day.
do not remember having read a eulogy on work by a prominent public man for a long time. The idea all round seems to be to reduce it. Of course no one wants tien or women to be on the grindstone all the time. There is not much fear of that. But that is a very different thing from calling it "a base necessity." There are strikes over a half-an-hour a week or something like it. In some cases it has got down to 44 hours a week, I read in a_ trade journal, "that owing to the unwillingness of bricklayers to do a fair day's work, Messrs. Caley of Norwich have determined not to proceed with a further extension of their works." I feel ashamed that that could be written of the men of my native country.
Tae Work Sairsers.
You all know that 2,000,000 new houses are wanted' in Great Britain, You would think, that all classes would strain a point to get then built. The poor, the working-classes, who are by no means poor, need them most of all, But no: I read in a trade journal again that when the Sun-eriand Corporation was about to begin its housing scheme the men demanded £1 a day pay, pay for all public holidays, and other demands were made. The editor asks whether a football match will not be demanded every other day. Are we a "born tire Are we like the ma an outdoor forem: When the foreman said "well, my man I don't think I need more help," the Weary Willy said, "I don't think the bit that I should do would make much difference." Which was candid.
In that wonderful book "Time and Tide" John Ruskin says, "No political constitution can ennoble knaves, nor privileges assist them. Look to it. First that you get some Wholesome honesty for the foundation of things. Without the resolution in your hearts to do good work so Jong as your right hands have motion in them and to do it well, whether the issue be that you live or die, no life worthy of the name will be possible to you. While in forming the resolution that your work has to be well done life is really won here and hereafter." A great sentence is that. Does it represent us all and the masses of men to-day? I mean do we feel that work is a blessing in itself? Cut out of consideration for a moment all extremely unpleasant work or unhealthy work; there are enough people, who have pleasant and healthy work. Think of them in their millions; do they call work one of the great: blessings of life? T don't think so.
In this I am fortified by the impression General Booth, of the Salvation Army, has gathered of the feeling of the world towards work at the present time. Te bee just returned from Australia and this is the report of his first. address. He "finds emerging in every country in the world an antipathy to work, which he says is a different thing from the desire to. be well paid. It is a very serious danger if we are going to cultivate the idea that there is something inimical to human life ix work per se. They came to me in Australia and asked mo to use my influence in the five days agitation. When I came to examine it I found it was four and a half days. I feel the question of fours is merely an incident. The thing I am talking about is the growing feeling—approaching animus—towards work, It is a frightful thing that a man should have a constitutional objection to work." That -is a weighty judgement. It is so. He is right there. The point is not that men object to unhealthy work, or badly patd work, or too strenuous work, but to work as work as against play and leisure. General Booth says that this is a most awful thing, if true as indeed it is. Let us look at some plain, undeniable and common-sense reasons why this is so.
Think first, that the whole universe has been created on the supposition that work is fundamental to life. Work is to the whole universe what the granite j Tocks are to this world. It is a thing without which the world as we know it could not exist. Therefore, if people are up against work they are up against the very scheme and idea of existence itself. We are at cross-purposes with the very scheme of creation; truly a hopeless position. What is work? The putting forth of energy to produce a result. With wonderful depth of thinking the Bible teaches that God Himself works. He does. The world was not produced with-cup the expenditure of energy, which is our definition of work. "My Father worketh hitherto" says Jesus and I work." Yes; the world as we know it is far more beautiful than it was in the period of the coal-measures, when there were no trees but monotonous tree-ferns, none of the charming variety of oak, ash and uiaple. The world has improved by the divine. activity, which is work. What is the world without work?
is just a mass of raw material. What is there that is of much uso till it has been worked up? I know hardly anything but bananas and blackberries, that are good, without cultivation, which is work. The whole world is just a mass of raw material to be worked up. If there is a large population even cold water is useless and dangerous until it has been purified, has been worked on. What have we that is not the fruit of work "in this roaring loom of time?' The foods we eat, they did not grow naturally a5 they are now. The wild crab-apple is the ancestor of our apples; but who can eat it without being ill? Our apples are the result of countless generations of work. The roads we walk on, the trains and steamers we travel in, the architecture that has built the houses we live in, the churches we worship in, the fabrics that make the clothes we wear, and all the ten thousand amenities and conveniences of our daily life are the fruit of toil, of the sweating of brain and brow, through endless generations of men.
Tae Nesp ror Lasovr.
Stop bard work as in Russia; talk slightingly of it, and that country shews us what we get—w return to barbarism. The world has not, been made by God like a slop tailors shop, where you find everything ready-made. No. It is a rich world, but you have to work to get its riches. The world, is Tike a piece of cloth. Nature is the warp but latour is the weft. Our salvation was nob won with-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.