St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-04-09
THE VALUE OF WORK.
Rev. DIR. Thwing Shows Its Value
From a Moral Standpoint.

From Moral Standpoint.
At Plymouth church yesterday morn
ing Rev. Charles F. Thwing preached
another pleasing sermon to young men
from the text, "Man goeth forth unto
his work and to his labor until the
evening.-Psams CIV, %. His remarks
were substantially as follows:
''Work, toll, labor, are words familiar
to human lips. Work, toll, labor, are
common to mems hands and hearts.
The world is world of work; the race
is race of laborers. All the progress
and civilization and advancement OF
mankind have sprung from this uni
versal condition of activity and work.
1t has been the parent of literature, the
designer of invention, the minister of
comfort, the promoter of art and the
diScoverer of truth. Pronounced curse
in the fall, man has turned the bitter
waters of the curse into the sweet
waters of blessing by the use of right
purpose and noble spirit. Men have
worked to get rid of work, and
yet, when the necessity no
longer rested upon them, they have OF
their own preference returned to work.
To one phase of work | now ask your
attention, phase which, / regret to
say, deserves notice-it is the tendency
toward deSpising manual employment.
The drift is toward genteel vacations.
Advertise for bOOkkeeper or office
clerk in tomorrow mornings paper
and at 9 O'Clock you will find difficult to
reach your desk, so surrounded is the
door with applicants. Advertise for a
good carpenter. printer, brickmason, or
for an apprentice to learn these trades,
and it may be necessary to go out in the
highways and hedges and compel men
to come in. The drift is wrong. Every
man ought to be able to
EARN HIS LIVING BY HIS HANDS.
| am, for one, happy to say that to-day
L could go into the humble, but honor
able, employment of tanner and cur
rier and earn comfortable subsistence
by working in the watts and on the tables,
in the liquors and grease of a lanyard.
But it is not of any one form of work
that am to speak. ] want to say, how
ever, that success of the noblest kind,
OF, indeed, of any kind, cannot be won
without wOrk-nay, without the habit
of constant, unremitting, systematic
labor. Let me also, before entering
upon fuller treatment of my direct
symmetrical. Our age is an age of Spe-
cialists. Men often break down because
they have stretched one line of the
sweet chord of life too taut, or played
upon it too constantly. Therefore, if
your usual work is mental, let your
play-work be physical. If your usual
work be physical, let your recreation be
mental. In your work be broad. Have
one vocation, and follow it; but have
many avOcations, and let them be of aid
to the vocation.
l wish now to speak of the moral
character and value of this great fact of
work. First-WOrk promotes happi-
ness. Happiness is flower which can
not be directly cultivated. Happiness
is never to be striven for as an end.
You must 90 out of self to make your
self happy: you must go into other lives
to make yourself happy; you must en-
deavor to make others happy. Work
other objects for his attention and dev0-
idle; if you want to be gloomy, sad,
"blue," be idolent. Oh, Woodworking
man, no longer envy those who do not
toll, their happiness. Be assured it is
not so great as yours, who goes forth to
labor with the dawn. Second-WOrk
promotes sense of independence. No
man in life has right to live, who does
not earn his living. Society owes no
strong man living. Every man is
consumer, therefore every man should
be producer. If his production fail to
equal his consumption, the world is the
poorer for his residence in it. He is, in
sense, thief. If he is at all conscious
of his condition, his consciousness is
one of meanneSs and shame. | want to
say word to the young women in this
city as to the sense of independence
which work gives. This sense of
INDEPENDENCE IS so VALUABLE
that | venture TO suggest one way of Sc
curing and keeping it. 1t is the ability
to support yourself. Every woman,
like every man, should be able to earn
her own bread.
Third-Work preserves from vice.
Man is so made that he must and will
do something. If he lack good employ
ment, he will find bad. Empty lives de-
generate into corrupt lives. Nine-tenths
of the criminals in prison have no trade,
no profession. Men are born with seeds
of badness in them. Men are also born
with seeds of goodness in them. The
heated air of idlenesS terminates the
bad seeds and dries up the seeds of
goodness. The cold air of work germi-
mates the seeds of goodness and freezes
the seeds of vice.
Fourth = Work promotes sympathy
with men. Most men must work. If a
man will not work, neither shall he eat.
Most are so placed that daily work earns
daily bread. | hold it important that
every man should live in close relation
with his fellows, with this great crea-
ture we call life. He wants to have a
fellow feeling with the world. Take off
his clothes, and every man is very much
like every other. The differences that
divide are slight as compared with the
similarities that unite.
Fifth-Work is cooperation with God.
Keplar said he was thinking Gods
thoughts after him. All noble work is
simply thinking Gods thoughts after
him. Work is the most direct way OF
cooperating with the divine powers.
God puts the stars in heaven, and man
turns his lens, a lens which God created
but man ground. and discovers him.
Therefore, l say, blessed is that man
who works, for he is the happy man.
Blessed the man who works, for he is
the man of independence. Blessed the
man who works, for he is preserved in
the hour of temptation. Blessed the
man who works, for he is in sympathy
with all men. Blessed the man who
works, for he is working with God.