But we may take comfort in the fact that the Book of Genesis shows some curious discrepancies. For in the Second Chapter God is represented as making one single man out of the dust of the ground, yet in the very First Chapter of the same Book we read that,—
“God created man in His own image; male and female created he them.
“And God blessed them and said unto them ... Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”
Thus we find that the story of Adam and Eve and the Serpent does not occur till after the creation of mankind (in the plural) and after the Divine order that this same mankind (in the plural) should “replenish the earth and subdue it.” No “curse” accompanied this command. On the contrary, it was sanctified by a blessing. “God blessed them.” And whether Genesis be taken seriously, or only read as poetic legend founded on some substratum of actual events, the fact remains that “to replenish the earth and subdue it,” literally means,—to Work. The “dominion” of man over the planet he inhabits is not to be gained by sitting down with folded hands and waiting for food to drop into the mouth. It is evident that he was intended to earn his right to live. It is also evident that the blessing of God will be his, if from the first beginnings of conscious intelligence and aptitude he resolutely and honestly sets his shoulder to the wheel.
It is only when we are at work that we are vitally and essentially a part of God’s great creative scheme. Idleness is an abnormal condition. It is not to be found in nature. There everything works, and in the special task allotted to it, each conscious atom finds its life and joy. The smallest seed works, as it slowly but surely pushes its way up through the soil;—the bird works, as it builds its nest and forages the earth and air to find food for its young. We cannot point to the minutest portion of God’s magnificent creation and say that it is idle. Nothing is absolutely at rest. There is—strictly speaking—no rest in the whole Universe. All things are working; all things are moving. Man clamours for rest,—but rest is what he will never get,—not even in the grave. For though he may seem dead, new forms of life germinate from his body, and go on working in their appointed way,—while, with the immortal part of himself which is his Soul, he enters at once into fresh fields of labour. Rest is no more possible than death, in the Divine scheme of everlasting progress where all is Life.
Nature is our mother, from whose gentle or severe lessons we must learn the problems of our own lives. And whenever we go to her for help or for instruction, we always find her working. She never sleeps. She never has a spare moment. “Without haste, without rest” is her eternal motto. When we, like fretful children, complain of long hours of toil, scant wages and short holidays, she silently points us to the Universe around us of which we are a part, and bids us set our minds “in tune with the Infinite.” The Sun never takes holiday. With steady regularity it performs its task. For countless ages it has worked without any attempt to swerve from its monotonous round of duty. It shines on the just and on the unjust alike; it gives life and joy equally to the gnat dancing in its beams, as to the human being who hails its glory and warmth as the simple expression of “a fine day.” It gets no wages. It receives very little in the way of thanks. Its duty is so evident and is always so well done, that by the very perfection of its performance it has exhausted the far too easily exhausted sense of human gratitude. Like a visible lamp of God’s love for us it generates beauty and brightness about us wherever we go,—and it invites us to look beyond the veil of creation to the Creator, who alone sustains the majestic fabric of life.
In some ways God Himself may be resembled to the Sun, seeing that He receives very little of our gratitude. We are so wonderfully guided by His wisdom that we sometimes think ourselves wiser than He. Of our own accord we give Him scarcely any of our real working powers, and were it not that we are all, in the mass, unconsciously swayed by His command, the little we do give would be less. Our ideas of serving Him too often consist in attending various sectarian places of worship where quarrelling is far more common than brotherly love and unity. In these places of worship we pray to Him for Ourselves and our own concerns. We ask Him for all we can possibly think of, and we seldom pause to consider that He has already given us more than we deserve. It very rarely enters into our heads to realize that we are required to show Him some return—that we are bound to work—no matter in how small a degree—towards something in His vast design which has, or shall have, its place in the world’s progress. We continue to implore Him to work for Us,—just as if He needed our urging! We petition Him to give us food and other material comforts,—yet if we study the laws of Nature we shall learn that we are intended to Work for our food and for all the things we want. We must Work for them in common with the rest of all our fellows in the animal, bird, and insect kingdoms. What a man does, that he has. We have no need to ask God for what He has already given us. He has provided all that is necessary for our health and sustenance on the earth,—but we must earn it,—deserve it,—and take a little intelligent trouble to understand the value of it, as well as to learn the laws by which we may gain and hold our own in life. We must, in fact, Work. All Creation visibly shows us that God Himself has worked and is still working. He, who has made us in “His own Image” must have from each one of us a strong and faithful effort to follow His Divine pre-ordained order of Labour and Progress. It may be asked—To what does the Labour and Progress tend? The answer of our last great Poet Laureate, Tennyson, is the best—the
One far off divine event
To which the whole creation moves.