Page:Labour - The Divine Command, 1890.djvu/95

Rh great efforts I had gathered half a sheaf, when I cut my hand. This is what happened to me one day that I was in the fields. And if I should take seriously to work, all my companions would laugh in beholding such an astonishing spectacle.

But how do you know how to eat? I asked him. When you were only two years old you could eat, but now, though already old, you do not know how to work! Is this for want of strength, or because you do not wish to know?

85. The rich man has also made me the following excuses : 1st. I would labor for bread, according to the commandment, but I am ashamed to do so; people would point their fingers at me. 2d. Is it proper for a rich man like me to labor with the poor? 3d. All intelligent and well-educated men would exclude me from their society. 4th. In laboring for bread, I would earn but 30 kopecks a day, while at home, with my pen, I can earn 10 roubles. Behold the reasoning by which the educated classes reject this labor in which they can see only loss and humiliation!

86. But, they add, are we for that reason culpable in God's eyes.? No; for Jesus Christ, when dying for us, exhorted us not to commit sin, and not to fulfil this commandment, that is, not to labor for bread, in saying: "Behold the fowls of the air," etc. Therefore we do not, and never will, labor for bread.

87. But if you are thus redeemed, I reply,