Page:Labour - The Divine Command, 1890.djvu/144

140 this be so, why is not labor prescribed by law and tradition as indispensable to salvation? Thus we are tempted to think that God's decree is not just; and for this reason I have said that there is enmity between these two sorts of law. Besides that, since the days of Adam, there have been millions of laborers; was there never among them one single man who was good and acceptable to God?

The question is of importance. But instead of solving it, writers who are more competent than I am, speak of the progress of labor and of idleness, without designating any one. Thus have they always neglected, and will do so till the end of the world, the discussion of idleness and labor.

Here is a new argument to prove that labor, accomplished in conformity with the primitive law, is more useful than love for others. If you speak of this love to an ignorant man. or to one but slightly educated, he will not listen to you. You will see that in his eyes and in the expression of his face: he puts on a dejected air, he is drowsy, he yawns, and is weary. He endeavors to lead the conversation to other subjects, or will tell you he is in haste; he prepares to depart, and what you have said he will not, or cannot, understand. It was useless to engage him in such a conversation.

I have witnessed all that myself. I have not invented it.

When, in reading passages of Genesis to a man, you arrive at these words, "In the sweat