Herald and tribune. [volume] (Jonesborough, Tenn.) 1869-current, 1871-01-12
Bcecher ON Manual Labor.

Nlr. Beechcr, last evening. took i've
verses, from the 9TH to the 18th, of the Sd
chapter of Thessalonians for his text, and
delivered an address therefrom on manual
labor. After citing various other pass
ages. showing that the Apostles had COM
manded work with the hands as necessary
and honorable, and this had been the case
with our fathers in this country but he
| (Nlr. Beeeher) was sorry to see that the
tendency of the age was to drift away from
this, and to look down upon all manual
labor with contempt, and there was too
much desire on the part Of young men to
get rich too rapidly and without giving the
necessary equivalent of labor, and a steady
current of young men was setting IN to
the large cities from the country and f. ON
the country towns, all bent upon the ac-
QUESTION f wealth without manual labor.
II ey crowd the professions.
Professional men are drugs on tn mar
ket. There was almost one doctor for
every sick man, and the law is so full that
if you distribute the business there would
not be one fee to each lawyer, and so half
of them have to become mere commercial
agents, and all this time the country
needs labor, and also needs educated me-
chanics. Then, too, there is feeling in
the community among parents that their
sons would be degraded by embracing any
mechanical pursuit. and their sons they
will not tan their faces OH the farm, or tar
their fingers on the ship, or harden their
muscles at the forge He then drew pic
ture of the horror of a respectable parent
at finding that his boy wished to become IL
mechinist. and the disdain of the boys
mother when informed of this choice, and
the father resolves that it will not do to
directly oppose the boys wishes, but re-
solves that he will 60 to Europe and take
that boy with him, and so he grows up
and gets to be so or 40 Years old, and has
dabbled little in law and little in bank
ing, and the father dies and the estate does
not turn out as we'll as was expected, and
the boys have to shift for themselves and
then where will this boy go?
Why" said Mr. Beecher, with empha-
sis, she will go straight to TIE devil. The
father-with the best of intentions-has
lost his boy when, if he had allowed him
to follow his natural bent, he would have
saved him. This was not an Overdrawn
picture, for (pausing and looking at the
congregation) you know how it is your
selves [laughter]. and l put it to you it
some of you do not feel exactly like this
with regard to manual labor" MIR. Beach
er paid an eloquent tribute to New Eng
land thrift and industry. and said that it
was owing to the necessity which they
were under of working hard for bare
subsistence. They could not get a living
out of those barren rocks without work.
Put an easy-going people in New England
and they would starve, and so wherever
you went if there was bank to run or a
railroad built, nine times out of ten there
was a Yankee in it.
No other part of the community are so
much cursed or SO universally blamed
They are the Jews of America. All over
the world men hate the Jews. and all over
the world Jews persevere in spite of per-
secution. They build themselves up, that
grand old race, and bid fare to carry the
politics of the world with them, and the
Yankee is the jew of the " est ,rn Cont
nent; they have been brought up tc work,
to put the whole of their manhood into
their business, and you see the product of
it. Mr.. Beecher, in conclusion. earnestly
besought his hearers if they valued the
future of their children, to bring them up
to some trade which should make them
independent and self-reliant under any ad-
verse circumstances.