"WE ARE ALL WORKING MEET.

Evening Star, Issue 12652, 4 November 1905, Page 1

"WE ARE ALL WORKING MEET.

This was ixm- the Dean of DooediS. answered some remark of Mr Statbanx at the meeting of the Anglican Synod last week. It will not perhaps become an famous as the well-known saying "We are all Socialists now." But there is tnrthi in it. Like most other things, however, its effect lies in its application. Mr Statham was referring, if we remember rightly, to Sabbath school teachers, and eulogising their service. The Dean was unfortunate in provoking a comparison between them and the clergy. There is no comparison. If there is a body of workers in the community whose . self-denying labors merit the highest commendation, it is the men

and women who teach in Sabbath schools. Their labors are entirely gratuitous. It is no mean sacrifice for those who bave worked hajd all the week to give up tbeir Sunday as well to the care and culture of other people's children. They have often to do this in ill-equipped buikimgs; the children are difficult to control, especially to untrained teachers, and when the only authority the latter can invoke 5s moral. La addition to aH tbis, they have to spend time during the week preparing' , lessons, visiting the children in their I homes, or taking) them oat for a holiday. Teachers freqnentJy give up tfoar own holidays for this purpose. Moreover, the teachers, as a rale, do not belong to the leisured class. They have only the evening hoars at their command, and their Sunday school work, if it is conscientiously done, is a serious curtailment of their leisure. And all tbis is performed without fee or reward of any kind, except the consciousness of doing good. The Dean was fll-advised to challenge a comparison between ministerial labor and labor of tbis character. As was very properly pointed out to him in the course of the discussion, ministers are paid for their work, and their work is comparatively pleasant, because it brings them into contact with, the worid of highest tJiought. Moreover, tbey ean take a holiday when tbey please. Their work cannot be so laboriona as most oUv»r khjds, for it ofters more opportunities for variation. Indeed, the current conception jiowadays is that parsons have a pretty good time of it. Some working men shovelling out a sewer were discussing the profession they would like to adopt if- they had their will. The discussion was closed by one, who sententiousiy said : '" Well, for "a good, clean, easy billet give me j, " bishop's." That, we think, is the prevailing impression regarding the clergy in a demosratic community. It is thought they bave an easy, not to say a lazy, time of it. A distinguished Scottish theologian said recently : " The besetting sins of the minis"try are vanity and laziness, and there is "an amazing number of men guilty of it."" A celebrated journalist, who, perhaps, has a wider knowledge of tbv. clerical world than any living man, wrote not long ago: I" Christian ministers, as a rule, are susl"pected of underworking themselves by " those whom they Again and again " I have ask.jd about prominent leaders and "others in the rank and file. I cannot tell "how often 1 liave had such answers ;ie " this : 'He is an able man, and be does "'not do justice to his powers. He Is "' lazy.'" These references are to fhe clergy at Home. We do not know how far they are applicable to the Colony. We suspect, however, that they are in a measure true of colonial parsons. No doubt the fact that they *re dependent entirely for their support on the people helps to keep them up to the mark. They know that their people work hard during the week, and they expect them to do the same There is probably no profession in which it is so easy Cor a man to be lazy if he likes, and certainly none in which laziness is so For the best perverted becomes the worst- The higher enc works the deeper the fall. I will not feed on doing great tasks ill, Dull tlie world's sense by mediocrity. And live by trash that smothers excel.

leoce. , That should be the resolve of every worker, but, m particular, of the clencal cue. The parson, however, is not quite without defence as agairst those who say that he :* either idle or useless, or, maybe, both. Not long ago we read, in somewhat unusual detail, the record of > dergymans twelve months- work. During the year he paid 653 pastoral calls, 221 tick visits, 40 visits to church officers on church business, and 23 calls at- the solicitation of persons not connected with the church. This makes a total of 937 throughout the year. In addition to this he delivered 12 special lectures, 190 sermons and addresses, and attended forty meetings outside his own church. This is u, very respectable total. The minister was a Victorian, and his church was in one of the mining district* of that State. Perhaps this is an exceptional case, though we imagine it is not unlikely that some of our own clergymen could put up as good a record. But if one thinks of it, it represents a pretty fair expenditure both of physical and mental energy. For instance, the 242 addresses, sermons, and lectures were delivered mainly to the Earn© audience, and the great majority of them on one theme. The labor required for that must have been coneiderable. John Bright, who knew something about speeches, declared once thai to preach even two «r-------rnons a week on the same day and the same theme was a demand with which he should be very sorry to have to comply. As things are, however, the modern cleric ia not only expected to do that, but to organise and inspire no end of societies; be is to act on committees inside and outside ms church; be is expected to take a band in political, civic, and social reforms. He is to bo a competent guide in re. ligkws truth* He is to keep abreast of the ever-shifting movements of {bongos, not only in theology but in literature and science. If a man is to do this, be will not have too much time to be idle or lacy. The attitude of a democratic eomrmmity, however, towards the clerical profession is, we suspect, only a particular manifestatjorj of the more general contrast that peopli draw between the man of thought and the man of action, between the dreamer and the doer. The limitation of tie term " working man." to those' who use the hands only shows this. But pf what use are the hands without brains to guide them? 'Set look at the txeatmeat that we hare been according to those who have the dharge ofI>«» dfYnlnrin; -Midi --rW ■—■■■" «*»* ***»»■ A» f

of oor future riation—school teachers. Consider the small salaries they receive. It ffl only within the last few days that the Colony haft provided a retiring allowance for them. This allowance is hardly as liberal as that accorded to a platelayer on the railways. But surely the man who works our "minds ought to have a afghet place in our provision than the man who Ivorks onx iron. The Socialist ideal has not vet arrived when the measure of value in all labor will be not ability bat fidelity. Very likely it will come some day, for there is truth in the contention that the man who cleans out a sewer and prevents disease is doing .is useful a work in the community as the man who heals us of the disease that has not been prevented. Nevertheless this millennium will not be retarded if we extend the term "working man" to cover thote who labor with the mind as well as those who labor with the body. Darwin's old housekeeper, replying to a query as to her master's health, said: "He would be "-well enough if he only had something to "do, but he spends all his day looking at "-flowers and worms, and things of that ■"Tcutd." That is how the thinker very often appears to the worker with the hands. But it will he difficult to convince sensible people that Darwin's contribution to the world's, progress was less valuable than his excellent housekeeper's, or that the soogs of Burns were not worth eo much as his work as a ploughman, or that Shakespeare does not deserve more from his fellows than the carpenter who made (his coffin or his gravedigger, who sings: O a pit of clay fox to be made For such a guest is meet.