Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-09-24

while from the rock in a desert place water
clear cool and sparkling gushes forth in
obedience to divine command. God moves
before them in pillar OF fire or cloud Their
enemies are driven out.
The promised land becomes theirs. The
magnificent kingdom of David with Jeru-
salem for its capital is the pride of every
Jewish heart. Having done this, God says,
/ am the Lord that did it. Keep my COM
mandments. Virgil sung arms and the
man; Carlyle tools and the man. When
Jesus Christ came to this world He found
three classes of neutrality-suspicious. and
brotherhood of man. Not like the socialist
of today who would tear the diadem from
the brow of royalty and scatter the wealth
of the aristocracy to make possible this
brotherhood, Jesus Christ seeks to level up
the race, to lift up the slave and the beg
gar. He would let those who are princes
be princes still. He seeks rather to make
the poor man rich, the slave free. the OBJ
scure man prominent and altogether kings
and priests unto God and His Father.
To accomplish this he dignifies labor and
teaches that there is no disgrace in work
Plato, Cicero, and even Lycurgus, counted
labor a disgrace, but Jesus Christ came
and for years lived in the house of the car
penter at Nazareth, and to those of us who
toll whether in office or store, in factory
or shop, there is more beauty in the square
and level which He used than in the halo
which artists have put about His head
The first Christians were working people.
Their motto was IF any man VII not work.
neither shall he eat" ST. Paul never count
ed it disgrace that he was tent maker
Nor do l imagine that he. has ever done so
yet. The first disciples were working men,
Our Lord seems to prefer them for the
Wesley, Bunyan, Carey, Taylor, Livingston,
and the whole host of worthless who
wrought nightly for God and His kingdom
have been men from the working class.
But 1 go further; what we who toll need
to know for our encouragement is that not
only does Christ dignity labor but in this
great work of leading Us out of the house
OF bondage He seeks to better the material
condition of the working class, and in this
great brotherhood show US how we may
rise above our environments. Brahm fixed
classes. Under his economy the carpenter
must be always only carpenter, the shoe
maker always only a shoemaker. They
derstood their place fixed by their environ
thing higher content to let matters re-
main so. Christianity holds before every
man ideal, and puts before him lad
der on which is inscribed ''Whosoever will
Israel once kept watch over his fathers
locks on the hills of Judea. Elisha, the
great prophet, when called to his life's
work. left his pillow in the field. Stanley.
the great African explorer, was picked up
when a boy the streets of New Orleans.
Abraham Lincoln whom our whole country
has at last learned to revere, battled with
poverty and hard times before he was
called to the presidency of the greatest
people on the face Of the earth Thank God
that Christianity holds no man down be-
cause of environments, since Jesus Christ,
the King of Heaven, once the carpenter at
Nazareth, is the Lord thy God, which
brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out
of the house of bondage whatsoever will
may rise to His likeness.