Page:Labour - The Divine Command, 1890.djvu/128

124 mercy, God would welcome you, but for very shame you will shrink from him. God, nevertheless, will not withdraw his mercy, though you have scorned the labor for bread that he has prescribed, and trampled under foot those who have cultivated the ground.

157. For 7382 years your festival has lasted, while we have labored. Now, in 1882, commences our festival and your labor, if the commandment is comprehended by every peasant. What joy, what triumph this will be for our inferior class!

158. If you have occasion to remain some time in the country, you must borrow for some days the eyes of an animal, for you could not remain there, having human eyes. As much as we shall be elevated, you will be abased. No one, nevertheless, will reproach you openly; they will give you to eat and to drink, but the reproaches that will follow your steps will be more painful than if they were made to your face.

159. If you earned your bread by laboring with your hands, and not by buying it with money, your feast would be the more complete. We are now your inferiors. We would then be still lower, for we labor under compulsion and pressed by want, while you would be laboring in obedience to the commandment. Your merit would be but the greater and more estimable.

160. You occupy now, in spite of us, our