Page:Labour - The Divine Command, 1890.djvu/55

Rh day? Are you not as miserable as I am, and as are the laborers, ray companions?

But as you are above us, you are more intelligent and better educated, and yet you commit the greatest of all crimes in the sight of God and the world.

You say, "We work harder than the laborer; and it is with the money gained by our labor that we buy bread."

We will speak of that presently.

12. We see by what has been said that we vainly consider how we should atone for our sins, for God knows what treatment should be prescribed for our illnesses or wrong-doings, and he has prescribed this; only we should accept it with sincere ardor, and not use divers pretexts to evade its application.

Is this true?

13. But if we, Adam's posterity, have inherited his sin, and share in the penance attached to it, and if we are really more guilty than Adam, because he did not know all that we have been taught, then we ought not to try to escape that punishment, nor to evade the penance which God himself decreed for Adam and his posterity. Each of us should labor to gain his bread with his own hands, whether he be rich or poor, and whatever may be his merit or rank, excusing only the sick or aged persons who are too feeble to work.

14. Doubtless, if we do not examine manual labor attentively, the duty of earning our