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who reflect on the deeper inquiries which its presence in society suggests? It is the way of man to take things as they are thrust on him—to abstain from inquiry into their hidden causes. To go to the root of life's phenomena, and this same "labour," is to dig into an unpleasant subsoil, where ideas not congenial to human tastes are obtruded, and thus mankind at large, always excepting a minority, who, by grace, are wiser, shut their eyes like the ostrich to the evils that press, and hope they are safe; or, like the unskilful husbandman, instead of removing the upas root, content themselves with a constant struggle to restrain the growing foliage.

With "labour" then ever in the mouth and pressing on the sense, let us realise the fact of its existence, and reflect on its tokens. We look to heaven and see no such thing. We look back to a period in our world's history when it was not; and we look forward to another when it shall cease. Men have a golden age in the past, and a golden age in the future. Traditions of the first paradise, more or less garbled, exist in all lands, when, as sung by the heathen poet,*

"Flowers sprung unsown, and all untilled, the earth
With plenty charged, brought mellow fruits to birth.

And poesy luxuriates in the prospect of a renewal of such unlabouring times. As we realise the existence of labour, its true nature breaks upon the mind. On this point current language is apt to cause mistake. The eulogies due to skill and perseverance are bestowed on labour, and a double meaning is affixed to the word. The labour of which the wise man declares all things to be full, is not to be confounded with mere employment or activity. Man is of an active nature and must be occupied. There is no place in creation for the idler. Such contempt and punishment are due to a character of this stamp that Holy Writ pronounces,- "He that will not work, neither should he eat." Labour is not business or work. We might be freed with advantage from the first, not from the latter two.

"For want of occupation is not rest;

A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed."

Labour in the textual sense is toil-work in excess and to the extent of causing pain. It is spoken of in the context as travail, and as an affliction to the sons of men,† and is one of a class of words suggesting care, weariness, exhaustion, painful effort. Labour then is the painful, careful toil which men undergo in the acquisition of daily bread, and the various comforts and objects of life.

This being the nature of labour, we come next to ask its origin. Man being like all rationals, of an active constitution, must work, and feel happiness and advantage in the exercise; but how and why is it that it has befallen him to carry this activity to excess-to have work connected with pain, care, exhaustion, and weariness? To this question, we apprehend, human thoughts are not sufficiently turned. God is holy and good. It cannot be that labour is the original arrangement under which man was placed; and that it exists now is proof that some disturbing and malign cause has intervened. And, looking to Scripture, we find this, as well as all other pains and sufferings which he experiences, traceable to the existence of sin. Man is a fallen being, and as the appropriate concomitant of his fall and crimes, suffering attends him more or less, even now; and though under a

* Ov. Met.

† Ecclesiastes i. 13; iii. 10.

dispensation of mercy, he is still left for discipline to a mitigated and overruled experience of pains and griefs. Labour, therefore, had its origin in the sinfulness of man. Not only had it a common derivation with other physical evils; it was made the subject of express mention and appointment, and is in the strictest sense the statute penalty of transgression. Its origin we find narrated, Genesis iii. 17-19,-" Unto Adam He said, because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life: thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."

Such is the origin or first cause of labour-the penal enactment of the Adamic age. Its secondary causes we find in the comparative sterility of the earth, which is the fountain of nourishment to the race, high and low, -"the king himself being served by the field," the reluctance with which it yields its products to man, and the number of those which are noxious and distasteful; and in the debilitated state of the human powers, mental as well as physical, rendering more difficult the discovery of nature's secrets, and the attainment of mastery over the "stubborn glebe." In the weakened sinew and duller intellect, the scantier and more unwilling yield of the soil, we find the chief contributing secondary causes or occasions of human labour. We notice, further, the universality of labour. Considering its origin, we are prepared for the sweeping affirmation,-all things are full of labour. All departments of work, business, occupation exhibit,-all persons engaged in the activities of life, experience labour. "Man goeth unto his work and to his labour until the evening "those who work with hands, those who work with head. Much study is a weariness to the flesh, and physical efforts exhaust the frame. We witness it on the sea and on the land. The sailor toils in the great ship; the fisherman in his little bark ; the reaper amid the sheaves of autumn; and the sower in the fields of spring. In the hives of industry and marts of commerce it is conspicuous. The mechanic sweats at the forge; the merchant gathers wrinkles at the desk. The clank of the engine, the sound of the handloom, are the utterances of labour. The book moist from the press, and the oration which shakes the senate, are its fruits. Not only in the noisy arenas of life, but in its calmest retreats, we find its ubiquitous presence; in the lap of office itself; by the seat of power; in the privacy of home. If our food and raiment are not won from the field and the fleece, neither are they prepared for use without its aid. The inmates of the domestic circle have their share of the common toil. No object of ambition or desire is attainable save through its means. Discovery and invention are not spontaneous, and nature relaxes its grasp only after a hard wrestle. Riches, honours, place, power, quiet, ease, pleasure, imply previous and careful exertion. To gather that gold, to win that palm, to climb to that post, to reach that sceptre, to arrive at that retreat, to prepare for that one day or night of pleasure, how sore and constant have been the labours! Whether we look to man as physical or as intellectual, he is the son of toil. In the court, in the camp, in the city, in the hamlet, in the house or by the way, all things are full of labour. Every object suggests it—our most noted agencies are its implements; the sword, the pen, the tongue, are in its service; the senses and even the limbs wait its occasions. And as it pervades all departments and appropriates every tool of activity, so it affects

all ages and all ranks. The young who feel it least yet know it; and the old man's strength is labour and sorrow." Beauty fades, vigour fails before its demands, and entire nature bends to its exactions. Vanity and idleness themselves are taxed with langour and discontent as their share of the common burden. All things are full of labour. No light exertion, no common measure of labour is seen in the affairs of men. Marked and heavy is its pressure. Life's cup overflows with its ingredients. No sooner has one task terminated than another is ready. Completion and satisfaction there is not here. One generation builds, another alters and pulls down and builds afresh, to be succeeded by those who shall do the like. Discoveries are made, used, forgotten, lost, and reproduced. Incessant winding up society needs in all its parts. Constant waste demands constant repair. The stone rolled to the hill's summit rolls back, and toil begins afresh. There is no end to the tale of bricks, and the cry is ever "Give, give." Man is truly described

“Hackney'd in business, wearied at that oar

Which thousands, once fast chained to quit no more."

This leads to the vicissitudes of labour. Though labour is annexed to work as a penal memento, the degree or quantity remains unfixed. To man himself has been left the power, to a great extent, of regulating its pressure. It is in his power,—not to escape but to modify the labours of life, and by consequence it is also in his power to aggravate its evils. By the exercise of ingenuity, man can greatly lighten his own labours by yoking in not only the beasts of the earth, but the elements of nature, causing fire and water and other agents to act the part of docile steeds and passive drudges. Thus, too, his tact enables him to husband his strength and to divide laborious duties. If the axe is blunt, he knows to put to more strength, and he hath often learned that wisdom is better than weapons of war. Able to diminish his labours when self-interest prompts, he is able also to increase and aggravate those of others when the same influence operates. Thus the tyrant “will grind the faces of the poor," and "oppress the hireling in his wages,”—mercenaries crush into a condition of brutal servitude and of slavery their fellowmen, making hewers of wood, and drawers of water, and beasts of burden, and articles of sale, their bone and their flesh. Society, in all its regions, attests the extent to which it lies in the power of individuals and of classes to abridge the liberties and increase the toils and sufferings,—or, on the other hand, to ameliorate the lot and raise the character of those within the sphere of their influence. By direct efforts of inhumanity and oppression have individuals and classes often encroached on the rights and aggravated the toils of fellowmen, but also by many indirect and unconscious means have they effected the same undesirable results. Through inattention to the Christian maxim -"Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others”—many have contributed to the continuance as well as to the origination of evils which they would shrink directly to authorise or inflict. By present arrangements in our kingdom the hours of labour of most, if not of all kinds, are unduly protracted. Not to speak of its unnecessary severity, in many cases its continuance is scandalously disproportionate to the exigencies of production. Not only are breathing seasons rare, and no leisure periodical but the Sabbath, the twenty-four hours are, with the exception of a fraction of the time, spent between labour, sleep, and meals, or, if more than that fraction is subtracted from the latter by the energetic, the studious, or the dissipated, an inadequate margin is left for the vital purposes of individual, social, and spiritual existence.

These statements will be recognised by all as embodying fact. All classes of speculative and active persons work too much, but on all there rests a similar pressure. Each impinging on his neighbour, the common motion is forward, and he who would stop is trodden down. Into the causes of this excess we enter not at large. Some of these are doubtless criminal in the sight of God, as haste to be rich, selfishness, avarice, want of faith in Providence. But there are other causes more involuntary. The labour of one place and country is involved with that of another, and such is the competition and haste of interests that many who mean it not are carried away in the whirl of the system which they cannot as individuals control. And yet again, to eke out a scanty living, some think themselves obliged to extend their labours to immoderate length. Then custom, even where no necessity, real or imaginary, exists, keeps a strange hold, and places of business and merchandise remain open, simply because it is the way of the trade. Long and late hours are the slow product of increasing competition, increasing selfishness, increasing avarice, increasing artificiality, and complexity in public habits and demands,-petrified into present obdurate strength by custom. The time was when in England the curfew rung at eight each evening, as a signal to "cover the fires," and retire to rest; and in some parts of the New World a bell is tolled at nine, which summons all to their own habitation. These practices of our forefathers and of some contemporaries may be said to be founded on a just view of human nature, and its physical, moral, and domestic wants; and though with us such measures are impossible, the cure for late hours of labour is in the hands of the community. Somewhat has been done, and may be again, by legislation; for unprincipled men are incapable often of any pressure besides. But without legislation much, everything, might be done by determined concert on the part of a Christian and enlightened public. Let late hours and long be frowned upon by the nation and the church. Let it be understood that if a man should stint himself of leisure, he shall not at least injuriously crib and involve others. Let buyers buy at seasonable hours, and not through indolence and inconsideration keep the whole emporia of the city open for their pennyworth. Let the hands of those be strengthened who seek to shorten the hours, and it shall be made the interest of the most unwilling to acquiesce. No one will allege that the same amount of traffic in all respectable branches could not be transacted in many hours fewer than it is now spread over, and if so, no pecuniary loss could result to employer, and by consequence no diminution of wages to employed; while the result would be a saving of time to all, and of labour to multitudes of young and old—especially of the former class, whose necessities are the most urgent and touching-now enslaved and oppressed by the customs of business.

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If, however, the public will not be enlightened and liberal enough to practise the regulation, restraint, and self-denial in the first instance necessary, important reform may be indefinitely postponed; and yet why should not suppliers coerce gently the public? As there are limits beyond which even now they refuse to go, why not push these back several hours by united action, and thus admonish all concerned? To effect the cure a higher pa

triotism and philanthropy, a higher style of Christianity is needed; and not till men learn to act as duty and not as interest requires-not till they practise the golden rule of Jesus, "Do to others as ye would that others should do to you," will the triumph be fully gained Steps are taking in the right direction over the length and breadth of the land, and already happy results have been realised.

The results of labour are highly serious for good or for evil to religion and every interest of value. Look at the effect of long and late hours. Business craves a monopoly of sinew, soul, and brain. The heart must do its best to improve snatches and intervals, and when nature is fagged and racked, then for domestic and secret duties. The mental thirst must be slaked like that of Gideon's troop by the way, and the waters lapped in haste. Hence the temptation to take what comes to hand-to imbibe the views that obtrude themselves in the broadsheet or serial, or that distil from lips of authority; and wise as men are in their own conceits, they are the few who bow not at some shrine. Now, if in this utilitarian age, and amid its haste and pressure, intelligence is likely to be more superficial than solid, not deeply rooted-a "thing of shreds and patches," extemporised for the emergency—there has seldom been need for higher intelligence, more sharpened and well-stored minds. Christians must know more things than they can learn from the ledger and day-book; more things than are dreamt of on “change,” or heard in the club-room, or than may be read in current literature, political or polite. They must know, to be men for the time, to be men for all time and men for eternity, their Bible, and to attain this leisure must be found. It is vain to expect biblical knowledge when the Bible is not studied, and vain to hope that it can be studied without leisure. How many visibly subsist on the biblical readings of childhood and of school! It is not the strength of irreligion and infidelity that puts in peril aught, but the weakness and sciolism of professors. Were men Bible-taught were our youth, who should be the leaders of the next generation, imbued with its principles and liberalised by habits of reflection acquired in its study, what bright anticipations might then be entertained! But to all this there must be leisure, and to leisure the hours of labour must be abbreviated. The opportunity would be at least afforded for improvement, and the sin would be with those who abused the privilege. Then excuse would be cut off from many who make it plausibly, though falsely now, for neglect of public, household, and other religious duties. Innumerable are the blessings that daily leisure might yield. We should see its effect on the public health, on the general longevity, on public morals, on public intelligence, on domestic comfort, refinement, and happiness. We should see its effect in the additional time it would afford for household training and prayer, and for the cultivation of secret godliness. We should see the effect in better kept Sabbaths, and the late Saturday eve would be no plea for the abridgment of the morrow.

The tendency of modern business habits and protracted hours is to render week day and week evening ineligible for religious service. Exhaustion and lateness are excuses, often too powerful, urged in behalf of absence from the week day worship. Ought these things to be in God's world, in God's church? Is our public religion to be crammed into the seventh portion of our time, which should only be the high day of its manifestation?* How much this habit of abstaining from more frequent service engenders the impression that Sabbath formalities clear every score, those know who search their hearts and watch humanity.

All things are full of labour on account of sin, but they are also sinfully replete. As we know that in the beginning it was not so, we hope for a time when it shall be otherwise again; and, meanwhile, let us seek to diminish, for

* Might we not say a seventh portion of that seventh, for what are the average three or three and a half hours spent weekly in church but a pitiful seventh of the holy day, a fraction of a fraction, again despitefully subdivided by the half-day hearer?

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