Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1914-09-07
LABOR AS BASIS
FOR HAPPINESS

Ihat most of mans sorrows come
because he seeks happiness in idle
ness, Where only misery can be found,
and not in work, the only domain of
true enjoyment, was the burden of
the argument in the Labor Day ser
mon of Rev. Dean Newton Dobson.
The discourse was delivered at the
Sunday evening service in the Eliza
beth Avenue Presbyterian Church, of
Which Rev. Mr.. Dobson is pastor
His text was from Genesis, And the
Lord God took the man and put him
into the garden to dress and keep
it,"
Labor has long been discredited in
the minds of men, In ancient Athens,
cultured, dignified Athens, no gentle
man worked, but in America al gen.
tlemen work. In Athens the slaves
did the work and the nobility sat
around and looked on. Most people
think Adam was sentenced to hard
work because he sinned, but our text
tells us that Adam was placed in the
garden to dress and keep it, and that
was before he had sinned
God cursed the ground because of
mans sin, but He did not curse man
by compelling him to work, he worked
before he sinned. He cursed the
I
briers and weeds to spring up as the
enemies of sinful man. Christ has
redeemed mans tools from disrepute,
and has dignified labor by His ex-
ample and teaching. He was Himself
q working man, and when he came
forth and claimed to be a world
Saviour his fellowmen asked Is not
this the carpenters SOM They felt
inclined to reject Him becase He was
the son of a man of toll and Himself
one of earth's toilers.
There is q false distinction. be-
tween things as sacred and secular.
Ploughing should be as sacred as
preaching. Ii it is sacred for God to
grow pine and oak, 1t certainly is
not secular for man to fell a tree, to
saw it into lumber and with it build
q house. If it We're sacred for God
to fill the earth bins with coal, how
is ii secular for man to dig out tho
fuel? IF it were sacred for God to
make the earth, how is it secular for
man to dress and keep it?
Human society Is q cooperative
and mutual organization, and each
member of it is supposed to con-
tribute to the general fund. Those
who do not work and contribute
something are Don-producers and
drones and retard the progress of
Inc OTBdnlZallOI. oDclely is QlNlueu
into two, classes--the workers or pro-
ducers and the drones or consumers.
Those who will not work are social
sappers and parasites. We call that
plant a parasite which has no roots
of its own, but sucks the sap and life
blood cut of the trees to which it
clings.
Likewise, those who get their liv-
ing without work are parasites who
feed upon the life blood of Society.
1t is the custom among the society
of bees for the workers to put to
death the drones and producers.
But society cannot so easily and
quickly get rid of it's drones. which
are made up of two classes, the idle
rich and the idle poor.
THE former do not have to work
and the latter are too lazy and am
bitionless to work. Idleness is the
forerunner of poverty and failure
Every man is on the quest of happi-
ness, but many fail to realize that in
order to be happy they must work.
Happiness and work have long been
djsassociated in the mind of man.
Labor and sorrow is often thought to
be synonymous. Work is the great
secret of happiness"