For they work thy toil to aid.
All in concert:
Sow thy seed and reap in gladness!
Man himself is all a seed;
Hope and hardship, joy and sadness—
Slow the plant to ripeness lead.
John Sterling.
ORATION—The Nobility of Labor.
I call upon those whom I address to stand up for the nobility of labor. It is Heaven’s great ordinance for human improvement. Let not that great ordinance be broken down. What do I say? It is broken down; and it has been broken down for ages. Let it, then, be built up again; here, if anywhere, on these shores of a new world—of a new civilization. But how, I may be asked, is it broken down? Do not men toil? it may be said. They do, indeed, toil; but they, too, generally do it because they must. Many submit to it as, in some sort, a degrading necessity; and they desire nothing so much on earth as escape from it. They fulfill the great law of labor in the letter, but break it in the spirit; fulfill it with the muscle, but break it with the mind.