Suggestive programs for special day exercises/Labor Day/The Toilers

by Ernest Bourner Allen

SERMON—THE TOILERS.

REV. E. B. ALLEN, LANSING, MICH.

Text Jno. 5:17, “My father worketh hitherto and I work.” This series of talks had its inspiration in some informal conversations with toilers in various places in our city and some of the topics are framed in response to direct request. These talks are not given on the supposition that the toilers are in some imaginary class below the average. They are not talks to, but talks with, the toilers. They are talks with all those who in shop or store, home or schoolroom, office or field, are working for bread.

I.  All toil is noble. We need to revise our notions. The brain and the hand work on an equality, and the honest handling of pen or spade is noble. Carlyle fittingly says: “Two men I honor and no third. First, the toil-worn craftsman that with earth-made implement laboriously conquers the earth and makes her man’s. Venerable to me is the hard hand, crooked, coarse; venerable, too, is the rugged face all weather-tanned, bespoiled, with its rude intelligence, for it is the face of a man living man-like. A second man I honor, and still more highly; him who is seen toiling for the spiritually indispensable, not daily bread, but the bread of life. Unspeakably touching is it, however, when I find both dignities united; and he that must toil outwardly for the lowest of man’s wants, is also toiling inwardly for the highest. Sublimer in this world know I nothing than a peasant saint, could such now anywhere be met with. Such a one will take thee back to Nazareth itself; thou wilt see the splendor of Heaven spring forth from the humblest depths of earth, like a light shining in great darkness.”

If you have read that quaint and helpful book “Hiram Golf’s Religion,” you will remember his conversation with the pastor in which he earnestly contends there is no such thing as “a humble calling,” but that he is a shoemaker by the grace of God as the pastor is a minister by the grace of God. And when he stands at the judgment with a sample shoe and the minister with a sample sermon, there will be no discrimination between hand and brain work!

With similar spirit George Herbert wrote:

“A servant with this clause makes drudgery divine;
Who sweeps a room as for thy laws,
Makes that and the action fine.”

Toil is noble because of its Heaven-born origin and exemplification. The Bible history begins with the work of creation and ends with the work of salvation. Christianity has ever been identified with the toiler. It called a leader from a despised slave race, and Moses did the Lord’s work. It summoned a king from the fields, and David the shepherd sat on the throne of Israel. It called for its theologian and first missionary a man not ashamed to toil with a tentmaker’s needle, Paul the Tarsan. It crowned the Christ with the consummate flower of toilship, bore him in a stable, trained him at a carpenter’s bench, and bade him be the servant of all, as His life was a ransom for many.

II.  Toil is noble because of the dignity of those who, practicing it, achieved greatness and rendered the world service. Men would have the power of a Demosthenes, but few would toil with a sword suspended above the naked shoulder that a cruel cut might correct each awkward shrug. Men would be Miltons, but few would dictate Paradise Lost in a world they could not see, sell it for £15 and hear a learned London critic say, “The blind schoolmaster has written a tedious poem on ‘The Fall of Man’ and, unless length has merit, it has none!” Christ did not say, “Come unto Me all ye that are lazy and indolent, shiftless and thriftless,” but “Come all ye that labor.”

III.  Toil is the great schoolmaster of the race which gives readiness and self-poise, and is acceptable worship. God has put the highest price on the greatest worth. “Toil is difficult in proportion as the end is high or noble.” Therefore the holy hermit Hutto could reply to Charlemagne:

“Think not that my graces slumber
  While I toil throughout the day:
For all honest work is worship.
  And to labor is to pray.”