Page:Labour - The Divine Command, 1890.djvu/65

Rh You have made labor for bread a secondary virtue; and you will be severely punished by God, and judged without mercy, because for thousands of years you have hidden this law under a bushel, and have slain a living thing. Read all the books in the world, and you will in them never find labor or the laborers held in the least esteem. They are classed below all else. And yet it is to the laborer that you must go to buy bread, and its productions depends on his good-will. Reflect on that.

35. All the crimes that are committed on the earth, such as thefts, assassinations, frauds, pillage, exactions, etc., result from the concealment of this law from men.

The rich man will do all in the world to escape this odious occupation; the poor man is eager to throw it off. But explain to men its importance and virtue, and all crime will cease forever, while men will be delivered from poverty and misery, because every one will do his best to fulfil this duty to God.

I remember well that, fifty years ago, the money tax was four roubles a head, the custom-house dues were trifling, and the king's treasury was well filled.

To-day, the money tax is thirty-five roubles a head, and all others are ten times as much as formerly; the number of persons liable to be taxed is doubled, and yet they complain that the amounts collected are insufficient. Thus it may be foreseen that in fifty years more the tax will