The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1876-05-25
LABOR.

Extracts from Recent Sermon by Prof. Swing,
of Chicago.
The labors of man are the completion
of the plan of God. Man and God toll in
harmony, and the six days of creation re-
corded in Genesis are companions in
glory of the days written down in the his
tory of mankind. 1t was the part of a
God to throw out into space an earthly
tall $4,000 miles in circumference, and to
cover its bosom with continents and oceans,
aud with trees and plants, and creatures,
from the colored humming- bird up to
man, for man could certainly have never
made our planetary system; but once
through with this work, which only On
impotence could perform, the Creator gave
the planet earth over to his child, aud or
dered him to proceed with the sublime
Genesis. The six days" stand, there
fore, as the vestibule of the temple of la
bora temple into which man now rushes
70 conduct torevermore the worship of un
firing industry. The God did only that
which Jay beyond the reach of His chill
dr,n. He would have hidden us marshal
the rain-cloud up from the sea, and to
move the sun southwark and northward
to form winter and summer, had not our
arms been too short and too weak for such
stupendous task. When the Creator
came to the achievements that lay within
the grasp of His beloved offspring He
withdrew, and left the good earth in their
care. Thus all the day of this world are
only the further foliage, and bloom, and
fruitage of that tree of toll which the Inf
mite planted and waered in the first week
of its immortal life.
1t would seem that the proofs of the ex-
istence of God are much the same as the
proofs of the being of man. The walls
of city should no more prove the ex-
istcncc of man than the globe on which
the walls rest should prove the existence
of one back of man. The literature that
hints at the rational quality of the being
that speaks it should hint at the PERSONAL
ty and rational quality of the power that
formed the tongue and brain that speak
the words that make the literature. Thus
man involves God and carries his
Maker along with him, just as the infant
involves its mother and betrays her eX i.
istence in all its own laughter and tears.
But it is not our purpose to think now
about the existence of Heavenly father,
but to think of that great law of the uni
verse that stands upon the statute book
under the name of labor. Labor is the
human soul becoming eternal, and hence
visible and valuable. AS God became
external in the creation of the material
world, as thus He passed from an in
visible spirit out into million objects,
so that now He darts in the sunbeam, and
smiles in the sea, and sounds in the thun-
der, and sings in the nightingale and in
the storm, and fills all space with the
trailing of His beautiful garments, 50
man in his 5000 years of creation has
rendered his divine soul external and Wis.,
IDLE in the temples and cities he has built,
in the acts he has developed, in the litera
ture he has composed, in the governments
and religion he has founded, in the songs
he has sung. As the pantheists say of
the universe that it is itself God, that the
leaf, the blossom. the futtering bird, the
swimming fish, are manifestations of the
Omnipresent One, SO we may say, borrow
ing the poetry of pantheism, that in labor
mans soul becomes incarnate and passing
out OF his bosom enters the column that
stands in teauty or crumbles in sorrow,
enters the law and philosophy that en-
bodies his wisdom, enters the acts that
embody his sentiment of the beautiful,
enters the home that declares his love, en-
tiers the sanctuary that expresses his wor-
ship. The human spirit without works
would have remained invisible-as un-
heard and unseen as the God which had
no universe-but toll came into the empty
space and in God gave US the universe. in
man gave us the beautiful and solemn
contents of our globe. Labor is the pho.
tograph of our spirit. After thousands of
years OF effort, Of honorable industry. the
two mortals whose realm was once little
garden of Eden have grown into human
soul that covers our star all over with its
numberless achievements. In language
alone we see the soul of man held in a
great mirror that omits no feature and dis
torts none. The mind, growing for thou
sands Of years, has here recorded its
progress-has in the language found an
urn that can keep the spirit long after the
body has become dust. Our word lib
erty" now holds in its glorified body the
eloquence and struggles of countless
great souls that once girded them.
selves for battle, and who sighed in
deaths agony on the bloody field. Our
word "l0vc" is full to-day Of the expe-
rience of the yesterday far away when
Ruth cleaned In the fields Of Boaz, land Ra-
chsl wept for her children, and the divine
Lord came in the name of all the love Of
Heaven. Open the page Of literature and
behold! the soul of 6appho, of Virgil, Of
Homer, of st. John, Of Milton, Shaks.
Deare of all the scattered ages meet You