Page:Labour - The Divine Command, 1890.djvu/83

Rh themselves: Whose hands have prepared this food? And as for their conscience! Wealth cannot silence it. It will compel men to be kinder to those who supply them with food. Hoping this, I have undertaken ray task.

68. And even if this commandment is graven but superficially in your hearts, O you of the educated class, you will not the less employ all your powers to eat only the bread of your own labor, and you will reason thus: Among the poor and the laborers, not only the strong men are laboring for bread, but also feeble women, who have young children that are thus neglected. The new-born child, in its cradle, suffers from the hot air and the insects that torment it, while its body is scorched by the sun. (Children of seven years also labor so far as they have strength for it, and old men of seventy who cannot bend their backs when reaping the harvest, must do it on their knees. These things occur even yet; but formerly, in the days of slavery, it was much worse. All these families live and die on the earth, following the precept, "Dust thou art, and unto dust must thou return." Think a little about this, ye educated men!

69. But among us, you will say, a man of thirty, in good health, continues all his life, even in summer, to whistle, with his hands in his pockets, while waiting for these poor martyrs to put his food between his teeth.

With us, the laborers, on the contrary, not