Page:Labour - The Divine Command, 1890.djvu/92

88 80. I have asked myself, why do they give deceit the name of deceit?

They might have given it a better name, because it is more veracious than even truth. It exposes and betrays itself.

It has been said: "The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground." Thus God spoke to Cain, that is, to the voice of deceit. If it cries to God, why is it silent to all the world? "And God set a mark upon Cain," the token of the evil doer. Does he not to-day mark with this token all wicked ones, and with them the sluggard of whom I have spoken, he to whom I owe an eternal gratitude?

81. You do not answer. Do you, then, approve of what I have said? You might, however, make this answer, which is the objection you offer in reality against labor for bread: "I cannot do several things at once. If I am occupied in agriculture, I should have no time for other things."

But, I reply in turn: "I have, besides laboring for bread, many others things to do. How do I, who am an ignorant peasant, bring them all to completion? If I were as educated and intelligent as you, I would occupy myself with many thousand affairs. Why, then, with your infinite spirit, can you attend to only one?

82. When you fly from the labor for bread, or from the conscience which torments you, you say: "If we all labor for bread, where will the poor get their money, for they live by their