Page:Labour - The Divine Command, 1890.djvu/59

Rh still belongs to the person whose labor earned it.

For even as a woman cannot purchase motherhood with money or in any other way, so a man ought by the work of his own hands to procure the necessary food for his own subsistence and that of his wife and children. He cannot elude the obligation by any means, whatever may be his rank or merit.

22. No species of animals, of birds, or of reptiles, nothing that lives in the air or on the earth, can escape the destiny God has planned for it. Man alone, the most educated and intelligent of beings, attempts it. And how does he excuse the attempt? Will he have recourse anew to the falsehood: "I work more than the laborer, and I buy my bread with the money I have earned by my work?" Let him abandon this excuse which is so false! For he may buy everything in the world with money excepting only bread.

23. I ask once more, why is the penance inflicted on woman to be literally fulfilled, according to God's command, and only man's penance to be considered allegorical? What excuses, falsehoods, and pretexts can you offer that are not so many refutations in themselves of your views? "This command," says the educated and intelligent man, "does not say I must work in the field with scythe, harrow, or flail. I eat my bread in the sweat of my face. That suffices." And a simple, ignorant man like me will