While this idea has its terrible side, it has also its side of glory and comfort. It provides amply for the failure of the faithful. Goldsmith says that “Good counsel rejected returns to enrich the giver’s bosom,” just as Jesus says the declined benediction of peace comes back to the true disciple. It follows that for the good workman there is no real failure. The house that he has builded may go up in smoke and flame, but the industry and honor that fashioned its walls and fashioned themselves in the making of the walls cannot be destroyed. The fortune that he has gathered may take wings and fly away, but the deeper treasures that have been garnered by fair-dealing in the marketplace abide in the deposit of the heart. Jesus said, “Your hearts shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.” We see here that there are possessions that human power cannot remove. They have been woven into the self. The treasure house is too deep for the touch of man. A minor poet tells us:
I’ve found some wisdom in my quest
That’s richly worth retailing;
I’ve found that when one does his best
There’s little harm in failing.
He corrects this mild statement in his concluding verse. He wanted riches, but he was rich without them; he wanted to sound the depths with his philosophy, but his ship sailed on anyhow; he wanted fame; but he discovered the secret of greatness without it; and so he adds the lines which declare that the failing of the faithful not only does “little harm,” but even that it furnishes its own enrichment of the real life:
I may not reach what I pursue,
Yet will I keep pursuing;
Nothing is vain that I can do;
For soul-growth comes from doing.
David “does well” that it is in his heart to build the Lord’s house, even though the honor be passed on to another. The good purpose helps to make the good man; and the good purpose that expresses itself in work is sure of the inner reward. This conception may be twisted into a soft gospel for the inefficient; but the evident purpose of the Bible is to offer it as a comforting gospel for the faithful.
It would be easy to follow the guidance of the Concordance as it notes the word “work” in the Epistles. All of the conceptions that have thus far been treated reappear in the apostolic writings. The symbol of everyday work is constantly lifted to the highest. We do not need to see Paul bending over the sailcloth and thrusting his needle into the canvas ere we know that he is a worker. His whole life was one of toil. He was not slothful in his apostolic business; and the fervor of his spirit would have been a good example to the ancient mechanic or merchant. He saw good men as his colaborers with God. He saw the men that he helped to make good as a husbandry that he was cultivating for the Lord, as a building that he was fashioning for Christ’s sake. The cure for thieving was work. He that stole was to steal no more, but was to work with his hands the thing that was good; and the benevolent motive was to impel to work that the former thief might have something to give to the needy. It was of the hard toil of servants that Paul said, “Whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord.” It is the idea of reaction again; God suffers no faithful worker to lose his reward. The apostolic rule is very thoroughgoing in dealing with laziness. “If any will not work, neither shall he eat.” This rule may be an offense to the idle rich, but it appeals to the sense of justice. Perhaps some day society will be skillful enough to starve its tramps and shirks until they flee to toil as to a refuge.
It is peculiar that the end of the Bible should have been misconceived, even as the beginning, in its teaching concerning work. We have discussed the heresy that declares that work is a penalty of sin. There is another heresy which pictures heaven as a place of everlasting idleness. If we select certain of the descriptions of Revelation, it is easy to see how the error arose. Yet in each of the weird pictures of the eternal city there is one sentence at least that hints at heavenly service. For energetic souls no other conception will be satisfying. Surely inactivity is not the goal of a redeemed race. Shortly before his death Mark Twain published in a magazine a satire on the usual idea of heaven. Introduced in a dream to the city of our hope, he was told by an attending angel to take his seat on a cloud and to occupy himself by wearing a crown and holding a harp. Soon becoming weary of this do-nothing life, he came down to the golden streets. He was asked to keep for a time the crowns and harps of the passers-by, and he noted that the way was strewn with these rejected ornaments! Some good people may have been offended by the satire; and some whose life has been filled with weariness will insist that heaven must offer rest. So indeed it must. One suggestive passage says concerning the souls of those that were slain for the testimony of Christ that they should “rest yet for a little season.” Those that have come out of great tribulation are given service as a reward of their tribulation. “Therefore are they before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple.” In the later description the land of rest is seen as a land of work, and “his servants shall serve him.” The race does not look back to a workless Eden; neither does it look forward to a workless heaven. Kipling puts it well for either here or there:
We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it,
Lie down for an eon or two,
Till the Master of all good workmen
Shall set us to work anew.
The ideal of the Bible is service, and that ideal is not rejected when life comes to its crowning.
One of the great hymns of the church gives to the worshipers in a sanctuary the Bible’s Gospel of Work: