Page:Labour - The Divine Command, 1890.djvu/117

Rh labor till old age. All that they gained by their labor they left to their children, and these have transmitted it to theirs.

Then why am not I rich? why can I not even practice the least economy? I owe no more than my grandfather did, perhaps even less.

134. Is it that there are sluggards and drunkards in our family? No, my grandfather has said, never! Have my goods been destroyed by fire or flood? No, nothing like that has happened.

135. Then what has become of my labor? What brigand has stolen my fortune? Whence come your treasures, O rich man? Answer me faithfully.

136. Oh, if the wrong they do us were only temporary! But it is eternal. As the generations pass, those of to-day must still suffer misery. They will never have defender nor protector. But that is only because you have buried alive our father, that is to say, the commandment.

137. Here is what I have had a glimpse of all my life, and what I see clearly to-day, after having for a long time studied the meaning of this commandment: all the world over the peasants go into the fields and labor for bread, assisted by their little children. The newly born, who have not yet tasted bread, suffer for want of it. To see these people, would they not seem like bees flying over the fields and gathering honey by the way?