The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1908-03-11
scholars, the authorities, the masters

scholars, the authorities, the masters
in surgery.
What takes them there? Simply
this: An old doctor by the name OF
Mayo has been practising in that
little town for a generation. His two
sons, now in early maturity, practise
with their father. The fact is that
they have been doing such marvellous
things with the knife, and such fine
work as surgeons, that the great mas
tere from Paris, Berlin and Vienna,
as we'll as this country, are singing
their praise, and go out to that little
town to sit at the feet of these men,
and pay homage to the superiority OF
their work.
1t is always so. If You are re-
membered at all it IS by the things
you have done well-whether you
have raised a field of corn, sewed
a patch on an old garment, made a
pumpkin pie, or written a poem.
Work is the great happiness
bringer. You all know what a game
of nine pins is. You set up so many
pins, and O roll two balls, and you
make a strike" or a spare" or elG
you don't. The game is to knock
over as many pins as possible. Men
become very skillful in it and gain
a great deal of pleasure by doing it.
That is the philosophy of all play.
1t is the erection Of artificial difficult
ties or barriers and learning to over
come them with ease and skill. That
makes the exhilaration of tennis, and
baseball, and bowling and golf.
I am told, and I do not know any
thing about it myself, that therein
lies the mania for making money.
That is a great game. Now, in
reality, work is just exactly the same
thing. The difficulties to be over
come are not artificial, to be sure,
but very real. But they are there,
and work Is the game Of bridging
them over with skill and ease and
joy.
In It's final analysis, for a healthy
man there is no game in the world
so exciting and so ex~hilarating as
his work. I suppose you long
suffering folk who sit in the peWs
and are more or less at times tempt
ed to somnolence, have never
lied that there was anything exciting
about the preaching business. And
yet I want to say to you that l
know of no keener joy than when
well and ready 1 take a theme and
look It through and analyze it, and
illustrate it,. and mark out the
points to be made in it's 1llumina-
ton, and then sit down to write a
sermon. Your fingers will not fly
fast enough. If it turns out well
there is a great exhilaration and
state Of happiness and joy. Making
a sermon is a great game.
Now the reason that there is SO
much happiness in work is because
of this fact. All true work is a man
expressing himself. We have gener-
ally thought that work is drudgery.
We want to think about work as ex-
pressing a mans message. Stephen
sons engine is S~tephenson's thought
dressed up in steel; Tennyson's poem
is Tennyson's thought set down in
letters; Watts Hope" is Watts
heart hunger put on canvas; st.
Paul's is Sir Christopher Wren's
praise to God put into stone. Why,
then, shall not the house builder
make his house declare his thoughts?
Why shall not the blacksmith make
his hammer and anvil express his
hope? Why shall not the farmer publ
lish his secret? Almost any man can
learn the technical part of any work
from carpentry to poetry-but no
man hath mastered a trade till it be-
comes a language through which he
can express himself to all men. O,
the drudgery of life lies in the fact
that we bend above our work like
dumb driven cattle with never a
secret of u heart told in our work.
And this shall be the Joy OF our lie,
that we make our vocation proclaim
to all the world the truth that God
hath put into our hearts!