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Labor, A Hero of—See. LABOR, AVOIDING  "I like to sew where there is no thread in the machine, it runs so easily," said a little girl. A good many people, I think, are pretty fond of running their machines without thread. When I hear a boy talking very largely of the grand things he would do if he only could and if things and circumstances were only different, and then neglecting every daily duty and avoiding work and lessons, I think he is running his machine without any thread. When I see a girl very sweet and pleasant abroad, ready to do anything for a stranger, and cross and disagreeable in her home, she, too, is running her machine without any thread. Ah, this sewing without thread is very easy indeed, and the life machine will make a great buzzing! But labor, time, and force will in the end be far worse than lost.—The Friend.

(1746)

LABOR BY PATIENTS

Patient labor at the Elgin State Hospital (Illinois) has become one of the most striking features in any of the seventeen charitable institutions of Illinois.

Fiscal Supervisor Whipp, of the State Board of Administration, has just returned from Elgin, where he has been investigating the construction of buildings of cement blocks veneered with granite.

Patients have already built a cold storage room and bath-house, and now are at work on a cottage for the acute insane. They make the veneered blocks in the basement of the institution in winter. The process itself is comparatively new. It has been employed no more than a year at Elgin, but has worked out with remarkable success—Boston Journal.

(1747)

LABOR FOR THE COMMUNITY

The worker bee is never found loafing while the sun is shining. Their work is wholly for the hive; for the community that is, and they not infrequently work themselves to death gathering and carrying pollen, with which they load themselves down heavily.

The work of the truly unselfish life is a willingness to work, and even if need be, to die for the good of mankind.

(1748)

LABOR IN VAIN

The Pyramids of Egypt are among the seven wonders of the world. Cheops, said to be the largest of them all, covers an area of over thirteen acres, is larger than Madison Square, New York, and twice the height of Trinity Church spire. It contains enough material to build a city as large as Washington, including all its public buildings. Four hundred thousand men were employed twenty years to build it. The purpose of its erection was that it might be the tomb of kings.

How much better would have been the result if all this labor had been spent to serve those who were alive and the then future generations.

(1749)

LABOR, OPPORTUNITY FOR

The verses below carrying a helpful lesson, are by Ellen M. H. Gates:

If you can not on the ocean Sail among the swiftest fleet, Rocking on the highest billows, Laughing at the storms you meet You can stand among the sailors, Anchored yet within the bay; You can lend a hand to help them, As they launch their boats away.

If you are too weak to journey Up the mountain, steep and high, You can stand within the valley, While the multitudes go by; You can chant in happy measure, As they slowly pass along; Tho they may forget the singer, They will not forget the song.

Do not, then, stand idly waiting For some greater work to do; Fortune is a lazy goddess— She will never come to you. Go and toil in any vineyard, Do not fear to do or dare; If you want a field of labor, You can find it anywhere. (Text.)

(1750)

LABOR-SAVING DEVICES

I have heard old men say that the mere easy use of friction-matches saves every day for each active man and woman ten minutes of life. I think that is true. You are not old enough to remember the adventures of the boy called out of his bed in the morning to go and fetch a pan of coals from the next neighbor's. The lad tumbles into his clothes, plows through the snow, finds that Mrs.