Page:Labour - The Divine Command, 1890.djvu/118

114 And in beholding men of the upper classes, I have compared them to drones, who are content to buzz without working, and to live by the labor of others.

Every day robbers are arrested; but are they really robbers, or merely rogues? I have found a robber, a real robber who has stolen from God and the Church; he has taken away the primitive law which belongs to us laborers. I wish to show you this robber in person. He who does not labor with his own hands for bread, but eats the bread of another's labor, he is that robber: arrest and sentence him!

He has carefully hidden the commandment of God, and no one for 7390 years has been able to discover it. Furthermore, he has stolen innumerable millions from the poor, and he has left them and their infants, half naked and starving, while he has by this means exalted himself to the clouds.

138. The bees clip the wings of the drones, that they may not eat up the honey they have themselves gathered. Your turn has come, ye parasites, and we have clipped your wings, that you may not eat the bread of our labor. I know that you will not the less continue to eat it; but when you lift the bread to your mouth, your conscience will take you by the throat, and nothing can deliver you from its grasp. If bread could be acquired by fraud, and if like all other things, it could be hidden in a secret place where it would remain in safety, all would go well. But