St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1886-02-15
Two Meetings at Which the Central
Thought Is of Interest to the
Workingman.
A Day of Quiet at the Palace Grounds
Tickets Sold to the Grand Army
Veterans.
DR.. Smith on the Temperance Cues
tion--Preparing for the A. D. III.
Convention.
Gossip Gathered in the Rotundas-
Saloons not Closed--Generai
Notes.
DIGNITY OF MANUAL LABOR.
DIR. Christie DiscOurses on posi-
biIities for the LabOring Man.

DIR. Chr1StIc DtSCOufsCS Oh
biIities for the LabOring Man.
At the House of Hope Presbyterian
church last evening DR.. Robert Christie
spoke upon The Dignity of Manual Labor
TO a large audience, many of whom we're
laboring men. In introducing the subject
he said that while speaking to laboring men
he wished them to take it for granted that
he had some right to speak to laborers
beyond his profession. His text was
selected from Paul's epiStle to the Thess-
alonians and from his address to the
Ephesians: Labor with your own hands,
for We yourselves know that these hands
have ministered to my necessities" DIR.
Christie said that Paul was practical
man. He studied and explained the laws
of nature and left others to build up fances.
He never set on foot u topian schemes which
promised TO emancipate man from the duties
of life He set forth no ideal OF society IN
which all were relieved from manual labor
and allowed the pleasures OF study. Free
dom from bodily toll was never aimed at In
his system: hard hands were not the symbol
of degradation. Religion could do many
things. but it could not supersede their
bodily necessities. Paul despised infdelity
vet he thought the man who left his family
unprovided for was worse than he who
denied the faith. His command Labor
with your own hands," implied that labor
was a primary duty. 1t could not be
claimed that there was widespread feel
ing that it was degrading, that it was bar
to society. Children of mechanics had come
to believe that in order to obtain social
position they must abandon the calling Of
their fathers, hence was there SO much
seeking after employment at which
man need not take off his
coat. The speaker would not attempt
to trace the causes leading to this state of
affairs. 1t had become automatic that there
were but three ways of getting living,
viz: laboring, begging, or stealing. Any
one who did not labor must be getting his
living by one of the other two methods.
All food products came from the soil, were
the fruits of labor, and, to obtain these. one
must give an equivalent in the form of hon
est industry, which was only repetition of
PauFs commandment THAT if any would
not work, neither shall he eat" or of the
punishment at the garden of Eden. I'm the
sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread"
THE POLITE LoAFER
claimed that society owed him living, but
the speaker could not see how the obliga-
ton was incurred, or how the loafer bene-
flied society; as well might a cancer be said
TO benefit the body. What was the hand
that beautiful piece of mechanism-made
for? Was it to carry in the pockets or to
wear kids? No. Rather to make the des-
sert blossom as the rose, to SOW and to reap.
He who thought society owed him living
would have great difficulty in collecting
his claim. The more work q man had.
the less his temptation. Action was
mans salvation, both physical and spiritual.
Labor was the road to independence; by
it man lived by right and not by suffrance.
A wise Jewish rabbi of the time of Christ
said: HE who teacheth not his son trade,
teacheth him to steal" Gamaliel, the
great teacher, said: "He who has q trade is
like a vineyard" Paul was no vagrant,
who had taken to preaching, for he truly
said: ''These hands have min'stered to my
necessities" and while he believed that ''he
who preached the gospel should live by the
gospel" yet he did not depend on con-
vincing the heather of this, and could ply
his needle at tent-making by night, after
addressing philosophers or popular audi
ence. Thus he did not have to trim his
teachings to suit any class of hearers. The
old Jewish rule Of teaching child trade
was once the good old English rule. Every
English father taught his son two things.
He instructed him in the ten command
ments, and then bound him as an ap-
prentice to some handicraft. This was the
foundation of England's greatness, from it
had come the great cities of Leeds, Man
chester and Birmingham. Our New En-
gland forefathers had brought this system
with them to this country. They brought
that cunning hand to make mechanical i'm
provements, the wonder of the age in
which they lived. At II years of age
10, n.,sx, hi a1N l.
could harangue an Athenian audience in
their own tongue in as finely-chosen phrases
as Demosthenes-yet he would have died
of starvation on
THE STEPS OF A HOUSE
In London had not some poor woman taken
pity on him. Anthony Froude told the
students of st. Andrews that it injured no
intellect to be able to build boat, make
shoe, build house, make clothes or ham
mer horseshoe, that if a son of his should
contemplate career of literature he should
treat him the same as if an indiscreet mar
rage had been contemplated. Froude had
observed the development of his time.
Jesus was the son of carpenter, and the
hands that fashioned the universe i'm
Nazareth had made plows and implements.
If the men south of the Mason and Dixon's
line had had, with their chivalry, the train
ing of life in New England, in the wilds
of Michigan or in the frontier settlements
of Minnesota, it would have been much
more difficult to have preserved the integrity
of the Union. In the Northern regiments
was always to be found some man capable
of repairing locomotive or of running it,
or of running logs over bar. These ac-.
complishments fitted man for practical
duty in any sphere of life. Ii man were
trained in some important industry he
would always alight on his feet. Some
said they would lose caste by labor. What
did it matter to experience the cut of the
unthinking if one gained his own self-ap-
proval. The sound of the anvil was as
much the sound of true manhood as the
voice pleading before a court or in the
pulpit.
Labor was the path to promotion. Am
bition to attain honorable distinction was
desirable and noble, and youth educated
in labor planted his foot on the first round
of the ladder, then the others were easy.
The speaker then enumerated some promi-
nent examples of men who had assembled
from the field of labor to the highest DO
sirions, including Gen. Burnside, Henry
Wilson, and Mckenzie late premier of
Canada, and if quoted, 1.-The fault is with
ourselves, not with our stars, that we are
underlings." DR.. Christie also gave a sum-
mary of Gen. Garfeld's life as a shining
example of men who had arisen from the
lowest to the highest positions. and said
that young man at Is, possessed of trade,
perseverance and temperance, could have a
liberal education at 26 years of age.