The Presbyterian Of The South : [Combining The] Southwestern Presbyterian, Central Presbyterian, Southern Presbyterian

WORK. THE CURE FOR THE ILLS OF LIFE.

Many are asking, what is the matter with mankind? The war is over and yet men do not seem to be getting down to normal again.

Why not get back to the steady pace of bygone days?

Many are the reasons alleged, and these reasons are good. Undoubtedly the world is becoming more democratic. The great body of the lower social stratum is coming into its own and making its power felt in politics and in business. Those who have never ruled are in the saddle, and the place is more or less strange to them. So the world is abnormal, because new and untried men are holding power. The idealist in the White House, the opportunist in the premiership of England, the intense nationalist in power in France and the autocrat in Italy are feeling the force of the uprise of the lower orders of society.

The unexpected check to autocratic power, and the waste of war have left a mighty effect on society. To meet it governments have resorted to the printing press to make money, so that there has been a tremendous inflation of currency with a corresponding rise in prices, which has thrown all plans out of line.

Perhaps the greatest cause of the abnormality of the times comes from the fact that for several years men were taken from the ordinary channels of labor and were more or less idle.

It is easy to learn how to be lazy. Idleness is easily adopted as a habit. Hundreds of thousands of young men were put out of the groove of their daily work and either spent the time in drill and idleness about barracks, or were put to new and more remunerative, and hence more attractive, work. The war ended. They were sent back. The old work became unattractive and the new work unapproachable.

This condition is affecting every real interest of the people. It is a great concern of the Church.

Is there any remedy? Is it possible to get back to ordinary lines and take up work of the Church and push it forward? We will have to recognize God's great law, that "By the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread." We can no more get away from that law than from the law of gravitation. If we do so without labor, it is because we are eating somebody else's bread. And the law of human compensation will force us out some day. Work is God's way of building us up into self-respect. The bread of idleness is not honestly won bread. The class of idlers is the greatest menace to Church and State.

First of all, work makes a man respect himself. He can look on what he has gained in this way as really his, with a proper pride. No man is normal who does not feel a deep sense of self-respect. And respecting himself, he will not overrun another man's rights and privileges.

Perhaps this is the greatest benefit that can come to a man. It is the bulwark of just law and sober society.

Work leads a man to value the work of others. He finds that by individualism he can accomplish but little. He is dependent on others for the happy fruition of his labors.

There is too much individualism in life anyhow. It is too much every man for himself. This age is finding out the value of team-work.

Work brings to pass that plenty that makes the Nations satisfied and furnishes that basis of contentment which is the beginning of every great advance.

Now all this applies directly to the Church of God. What each one needs to know is that simple service, work in the home and humbler places of life, is the best for us—"To every man his work" is the divine command.

The Christian who is doing something for the Kingdom of God certainly feels a higher regard for himself. He enjoys a proper pride in the progress of the Church of the Living God. He respects the work of others, as he sees that while he may reap, others have sown; or is encouraged when he sows in tears to feel that some one else, if not himself, will reap with rejoicing. Then by this humble and self-forgetting service the kingdom will go forward by leaps and bounds.

The vacation season is over and the work begins. Shall we not make it an abundant one?

A. A. L.