The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-09-03
THE MASTER WORKMAN.
Labor Day Discourse by
Bishop f. D. Hunting
ton If SvracuSa
ton of Syracuse.

Along with the dignity of man you
hear, and nowadays hear often, Of the
dignity of labor. You like to hear of it
because you are workingmen. You are
glad to have your work lifted into hon
or, and yourselves with it. And, my
friends, you can be raised to honor in
no other way
Shall we say that man is a working
animal? Better than that, he is work.
ing brain, working will, working con-
science, working heart of faith and love-
all in one. Whatever in you lives, lives
by action. Whatever in you is inactive
is the dying part Life and labor are
correlated. The labor questions, then,
are vital questions. They are not sur
lace questions, or party questions, or
questions of day, or questions of pas
SION. They reach high and wide and
oeep. They are perplexing in their diff
nculty and awful in their greatness, for
the very reason that labor is life.
Yes, fearful questions but the ques-
ton whether labor is a blessing or
curse Is not one of them. 1t is a curse
only when there is something horribly
wrong about it, wrong in the man that
l.
Get US rid of work. will never be the
Watchword of a noble reform. Even
the reduction of work would be a sec
ondary good. Thousands of tired and
sleepless capitalists would be thankful
to even their hours of labor with their
Workmen at the factory or railway, in
the forge, the mine, the field. II was
the Master Workman, looking with ten
der and gracious sympathy on all the
nT no ff,,l1
ltalist, owning all the Kingdoms, vet the
servant who washed the feet Of the
ooubter, the denier and the traitor who
sllenced ms accusers by the lofty CON
lesslon, My Father worketh. and I
work. A release from labor saves no
soul, makes no man manly, no woman
womanly. In high mansions and low
saloons, at the top and the bottom of
the CITY Of much rotten wealth and
much reckless poverty, laziness darnns
great many in this world and the
world to come. That is one of the first
words of Christianity.
me nation never forgets to celebrate
us independence, but it has no festival
IN its calendar for the blessings Of or
DER Here is the fit mission of Labor day
say what we will of the self-satisffed
glorylng of independence, there is a
higher glory yet-the glory of intelli-
obedience is due. The first want of anv
society of men is to own will above its
highest heads. Agony and blood have
mad to drill it into the understanding
OF most peoples, as Gods finger drilled
1t into the stone tables at Mt. Sinai. that
no man or nation is fit to command that
mas not learned to obey. We shall have
broken contracts, and contracts that
only -scoundrelS could ever have signed.
fugitive bondsmen and successful SWIM
dlers, banks robbed from without ana
robbed from within, thievish trustees of
orphan houses bribable juries and mer-
chants bankrupt of everything else but
money wherever men and women do
not believe in a recttude that they can
not buy or sell, in a worship which is
not breeze of fine sentiment, or a
pageant for the eve, in a church which
is not an insurance office for private
salvation or club for entertainment,
but the laW-educated and law honorinr
body Of 2 Master Christ and in God
who will by no means clear the guilty.
I am not come to destroy the law, but
to fill it full" Put them in mind to
obey magistrates, kings. governors,
whatever the ordained and constitution
al power" may be, for they are God s
ministers for that very thing"
| urge you working men who have
rights to gain and freedom to preserve
80 speak We and so act as they that
shall be judged by the law Of liberty"
You may say that certain laws are un-
just, that they protect tryronincal cor
porations and discriminate in favor Of
the rich, and that may be true. But
thank heaven that you live in a country
where laws are made and mended by
the people. You are of the people. Edu-
cate yourselves 20 exercise your right
to conform to the lew of the land to the
law of Christ
Let intelligent workmen who work for
wages make a candid study of the ac-
tual condition, methods, aims profits
and losses of the masters of the partic-
ular industry in which they are en-
ployed. Let the employer give an equal
ly candid hearing to half dozen of the
best operatives in his employ, while
both are in good temper. Each partyl
will learn great deal, seeing the alb
snrdity and mischief of it's mistakes.
Nothing is palmer to observers at al
little distance than that the antagonists
in these recent labor struggles are fight
ing in the dark. striking with blind
strokes, which hit friends along with
foes, and are often suicidal--a pathetic
repetition of a thousand tragedies
where man has killed or mutllated his /
fellow man for lack Of knowing who the !
felIow-man was and what he meant. |
The two Glasses" are suffering piteous- |
ly for want of a mutual introduction
and Interpretation, though they mayl
live close together, serve the same es
Establishment. and really depend on each
Others good will
A conspicuous employer of hun
dred hands said to me the other day, |
by his own Preside, with unaffected
grief: 81 have been losing money rap
idly for five years, doing my best;
must be impoverished wind up this
business and put out the fires Of this
foundry, or else give the men, for a
time. at least less wages; after while
l might do better by them; / actually
run the concern now as much to keep
them and their families from starvation
as from any expectation OF prof1ts.
have tried to tell them so, but they will
not believe me"
Why would they not believe him? 1t
is world Of vicarious suffering; very
likely it was because employers of less
heart shutting their mouths and open !
ing their pockets, refuse to take even
their foremen into their confidence. |
When will classes LEAFS Christ's simple
lesson in the political economy of his
heavenly kingdom-that in the long run
the interest Of one is the interest of all,
and that the world was made by heaven
on that plan?
Neither the philosophy of Hobbies nor
of Rousseau, can keep a permanent
hold of any people under the sun. So |
ciety is not a cunning balance of self |
interests or see-saw of competing ups
and downs, nor is war the normal state
of nations or neighbors. National
greatness will come of obedience to
THIS law especially: That what is best
for all the parts is best for the whole, |
and what is best for the whole
is best for all the parts That
was very sagacious sentence
which the master workman of the
Knights of Labor recently wrote: "If
the theory that the men who own CAM !