Fremont journal. [volume] (Fremont, Sandusky County [Ohio]) 1853-1866, 1853-06-25

From the Ohio Cullivator.
THE LAB0RER'S HOLIDAYS.


This is busy busting world From morn
ing to night, go where you will in town or
country, you are constantly josted by eager,
notwithstanding men, who brush past you
without seeming to recognize the fact of your
existence. Their eyes seem straining at some
object away in the distance, at which they
have gazed so long and earnestly, that their
poor foreEeads ache and plead for respite
But nol the exacting taskmaster of the soul
branshes his merciless scourge, and every f.
bre of the vital powers is kept in tension like
the strings of new fiddle, upon which some
Musical tyro has commenced to murder the
noifensve notes Of the chromatic SCALE
1t is SO everywhere. We have seen
men in the quarries and gravel pits, who
toilee from Monday morning to Saturday
night, taking just sufficient time to eat and
sleep, as the dray horses do, and who never
seem to indulge an aspiration above good
bacon and cheap whisky. We have seen ap-
prentices, male and female, at various over
stocked trades, who are held equally punctu-
al at their posts. while the freshness of their
young life is wthering away like grass tufts
in the summer drought, in the chinks of these
dusty pavemenis. We have seen merchants
and shop keepers clerks, receiving their ni-
tiatory under the eye Of what the world calls,
the accomplished and successful business
| man,-we have seen such at their vocation
in the city, ali day and every day, sharpening
themselves in the perfection of cool lying and
bland deception. in the forlorn hope thct
some day they would attain the enviable rep
utation of "frst-rate salesman" We have
seen farmers boys, upon whom the sun only
rises to light their way to cheerless toll, who
are seldom or never inspirited by the nobler
impulses of humanity, but learn to look on
labor as an onerous duty and primeval curse
We have seen kitchen girls, the bounds oi
whose habitation" were circumscribed by tho
cistern-pump on one side. and the dining room
door on the other,--whose narrow back-stair-
way and low attic were fit representations Of
the moral endowments of their employers
We have seen employers, and self employers
too, husbands and wives, whose whole life
seemed an unvarying round of work, work.
work. Who held themselves religiously bound
to render life as unattractive as possible, by
doing an eternal penance, which could scarce
ly claim the redeeming quality of obedience
We have looked thoughtfuly on this and
much more Of the same character, and won.
dered what would ever come of all our boast
ed inventions and improvements for the aid
of the Industrial world. If it is only to eat
and sleep and put on goodly apparel, we have
made no progress in the last three thousand
years. If the Soul is not to be invested with
the higher prerogative of its existence, all oui
bor-savng inventions might as well be left
to founder where the chariots of Pharoah
were overwhelmed, when he essayed to fol,
low the fugitive Hebrews.
But we have higher faith in the purpose
of life. Man must learn that in the erea
census which is to fix the comparative value
of men, he is richest who has most developed
the divinity within HIMSELF 6-he is wisest who
has deepest fatbomed the Infinite and his
eye most provdent, who has best comprehen,
ded the measure of Immortality No wond,
er, in view of what we see daily of the pres
ent policy of labor, that the conventional
rights of society are dsregarded and legal re.
strictions transgressed. The system Of plum.
der is SO palpable thak the dullest can see
throughit No wonder that the Holy.S Sab
bath, instead Of being used as a sacred Jubi-
lee, is degraded to the baser purposes o
sensuality. We must not expect the virtues