Page:Labour - The Divine Command, 1890.djvu/14

10 women are stronger than men, and to them men owe the hope of becoming in the future more faithful to primitive law. Still a mother who disregards her maternal duties, and finds all her pleasure in luxury and worldly enjoyments, will bring up her children to false ideas, and will teach them to neglect, the duty of labor, by usurping the fruits of others' exertions. On the contrary, the faithful parent would instruct her children that labor is necessary to life.

We can compare these ideas with those expressed by Bondareff in the first paragraphs of Labor according to the Bible. Bondareff interprets the account given in Genesis as meaning that Adam was punished for eating the forbidden fruit, that is, for taking the fruits of others' labor. He was condemned to seek his own food, "to knead his bread," to use Bondareff's expression, by the sweat of his face.

It is by manual labor and above all by tilling the ground, and not by the merits of Christ, not by sacraments or other virtues, that Adam was to save his soul from hell. His descendants have inherited with original sin the obligation to labor for their redemption. The penance inflicted on Adam by Jehovah is not allegorical. That of Eve, "In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children," must be taken literally. Thus, on one side, man must procure by the