The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-12-04

How much is 1t going to bring me? This question, so legitimate while it concerns those precautions which each ought to take to assure his subsist- enee by his labor, becomes pernicious as soon as it passes its limits and dominates the whole life. This is so true that 1t vitiates even the toll which gains our daily bread. 1 furnish paid labor: nothing could be better. But if to inspire me in this labor l have only the desire to get the pay nothing could be worse. A man whose only motive for action is his wages does bad piece of work. What interests him Is not the doing, it's the gold. If he can retrench in pains without lessening his gains. be assured that he will do it. Plowman, mason, factory laborer, he who loves not his work puts into it neither interest nor dignity-is, in short, a bad workman. It is not we'll to confide one's life to doctor who is wholly engrossed in his fees, for the spring of his action is the desire to garnish his purse with the contents of yours. If it is for his interest that you should suffer longer, he is capf 2le of fostering your malady instead of fortifying your strength. The instruct or of children who cares for his work only so far as it brings him profit is sad teacher, for his pay is indifferent and his teaching more indifferent still Of what value Is the mercenary jour nalist? The day you write for the dol lar, your prose Is not worth the dol lar you write for. The more elevated in kind Is the object of human labor, the more the mercenary spirit, if 1t be present, makes this labor void and corrupts 1t.
 There are a thousand reasons to say that all toll merits its wage, that ev- cry man who devotes his energies to providing for his life should have his l place in the sun and that he who does nothing useful-does not gain his live lihood, in short-is only a parasite. But there is no greater social error | than to make gain the sole motive of action. The best we put into our work 1 be that work done by strength of muscle warmth of heart or concen- | which no one can pay us. Nothing bet ter proves that man is not a machine ] than this fact: Two men at work with the same forces and the same move ments produce totally different results. l Where lies the cause of this phenom- enon? In the divergence of their in- tentions. One has the mercenary spir- ! it. the other has singleness of pur- pose. Both receive their pay, but tho 1 labor of the one IS barren; the other r has put his soul into his work. Tho ! work of the first is like a grain of sand. out of which nothing comes through all eternity; the others work is like the living seed thrown into the ground. It germinates and brings forth harvests. This is the secret which ex- plains why so many people have failed while employing the very processes by which others succeed. Automatons do not reproduce their kind, and merce. nary labor yields no fruit.
 Internationally we must bow before economic facts and recognize the diff. culties of living. From day to day if becomes more imperative to combine well one's forces in order to succeed in feeding, clothing, housing and bring ing up a family. He who does not rightly take account of these crying necessities, who makes no calculation 4 no provision for the future, Is but a visionary or an incompetent and runs the risk of sooner or later asking aims from those at whose parsimony he has sneered. And yet what would become of us if these cares absorbed us en. tirely-if, mere accountants, we should wish to measure our effort by the mon. ey it brings, do nothing that does not end in receipt, and consider as things worthless or pains lost whatever can. not be drawn up in figures on thd pages of ledger? Did our mothers look for pay in loving us and caring for us? What would become of flial piety if we asked it for loving and caring for our aged parents7
 What does 1t cost you to speak the truth? Misunderstanding sometimes sufferings and prosecutions. To de fend your country? Weariness, wounds and often death. To do good? An noyance, ingratitude, even resentment Self sacrifice enters into all the essen tial actions of humanity. I defy tht closest calculators to maintain thell position In the world without evel appealing to aught but their calcula tions. True, those who know how to make their pile" are rated as men oi ability. But look a little closer. How much of 1t do they owe to the unself ishness of the simple hearted? Would they have succeeded had they met only shrewd men of their own sort, having for device, "No money, no servicef' Let us be outspoken. It is due to cer tain people who do not count too rigor ously that the world gets on. The most beautiful acts of service and the hardest tasks have generally little re muneration or none. Fortunately there are always men ready for unselfisl deeds and even for those paid only ir suffering, though they cost gold, peace and even life. The part these meu play is ofsen painful and discouraging Who of us has not heard recitals oi experiences wherein the narrator re gretted some past kindness he had done, some trouble he had taken, to have nothing but yexation in return These condolences generally end thus Tt was folly to do the thingr' Some times it is right so to judge, for 1t Is