1897.]
dignity of Labor? Is there anything grand or noble in toil?
What is there elevating in the wearing of greasy overalls, the
griming of the hands or the sweating of the brow ? You may
even say, Labor is a curse pronounced upon us by God. Man
was made for a higher estate. We are the image of God, and it
is a condescension on the part of man to labor. It coarsens and
misshapes the frame, blunts the sense and destroys the finer sen
sibilities. Can there, then, be any dignity in Labor ?
But, my dear friends, let me ask this question, what is Labor ?
Some one has said: “ Labor is any painful exertion of mind or
body, undergone partly or wholly with a view to future good.”
’Tis this which ennobles Labor, the exertions to "future
good.” The dignity, then, does not lie in the act of labor, but in
the laborer and in the results of his toil.
Nothing, great or small, has ever been accomplished by man
without a corresponding amount of suffering—yes, even death.
’Tis a common truth that all great and successful undertakings
have propitiated success by human sacrifices on the altars of
enterprise. “ What man puts into his pocket Nature takes from
his chest.” ’Tis a simple yet fixed law governing man. In the
old Norse Sagas Odin sacrificed his eye for wisdom. In Tom
Wood’s song, ’twas with reddened eyes and tear-streaked cheeks
that the shirt was sewed with the Thread of Life. The electric
current which flows so silently along the cold and snaky conduc
tors carries with it the current of human life. Those magnificent
railways which are the arteries of commerce, and unite ocean to
ocean, rest upon other than wooden sleepers, and, oh! how soundly
they sleep.
No work was ever accomplished without Purpose. Labor is
the result of it, and what so dignifies, elevates and ennobles a
man as a true and honest purpose ? With purpose strong, Hope
rises high and man feels invincible; he is eager, anxious to go on;
he becomes mighty, even god-like, as unto his original state.
With a firm purpose in his heart, man has labored until he has
raised himself to his present state of civilization. To-day that
same purpose causes him to labor patiently from morning till
night in order that he may win honors at school, gain fame in the
world, or, what is nobler, feed his hungry babies or support an
aged father and mother. It is these purposes, these views to
future good, which cause man to struggle bravely, but, oh ! how
painfully, with the world, compelling it to grant him and his an
The Dignity of Labor .