"THE DUTIES AND REWARDS OF LABOUR."

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIV, Issue 194, 18 August 1890, Page 2

"THE DUTIES AND REWARDS OF LABOUR."

The Rev. F. W. Isitt preached on this subject at St. John's Weslcyan Church last night to a crowded congregation, taking as his text St. Matthew XXV., 21— " His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou bas been faithful over a few things, I will make thee rulsr over many things : enter thou into the joy of thy lord." J " In this chapter (said the preacher) Christ recognised but two classes of men— two characters under differing aspects: the w ise aud the foolish, tho faithful and the faithless, the benevolent and the selfish. Character was thus chosen to be tbe law of life here and hereafter. The test of character is seen to be a fulfilment of a trust. Life is built up of trusts. Every employer and purchaser must exercise confidence. The ungenerous, suspicious man is hated. The man who betrays a trust is despised. Trust involves responsibility, liability to give account. In the world of business this is clc tr. In the spiritual world it is to bo expected. Account shall be given not to a blind force, not to public opinion, variable as the wind, not to a conscience, blinded by passion, dulled by indulgence, but to One too wise to mistake our charac* ter, too kind to be partial or unjust, This trust covers all life, not merely that margin of life which is deemed its ideal, especially with things spiritual. Faithfulness as much demands attention to another's cry of distress as it does the uplifting of our own cry of prayer, the avoidance of taking another's bread as the earnings of our own, the refraining from late shopping on Saturdays if it robs another of his Sabbath or the attendance at God's house of prayer. Every man who goes to his honest toil should go as God's servant. He is more, infinitely more, than the servaut of his employer: he is the steward of God. Only as this is realised can we understand the dignity of labour, the worth of life. This world is a mighty hive of workers, in which the working of the humblest is of value to the whole. The great leaders depend on tho many toilers. Livingstone's and Stanley's names are world known: their burden bearers are anonymous, yet they contributed to the success of the great explorers. Wellington had been helpless without his army, Nelson without his crews. When men await a physician's verdict they think nothing of the engine drivers, pointsmen, and Bignal men, without whose aid he could not have reached his illustrious patient's bed. God knows the rank and file of workers as well as the great captains of industry. Their work is of infinite value to the world, and of infiuito interest to Him. Under all conditions He demands faithfulness. The first step of industrial evolution was slavery, in faot aud in name. The first great labour striko recorded iv history was when the foreign slaves would no longer endure the oppressions of that Pharaoh who withstood Moses, bit drove him from his crown to languish in exilo for twelve years until his son re-established his authority and renewed tho suhjection of the slaves. In Greece and Rome the vast majority of men were slaves. Christianity did not denounce the system, it undermined it by setting men on ono level as brothers. Because Christianity hates violenco it did not set the slaves in revolt. Because it hates oppression it bounel masters and slaves in bonds of brotherhood that perforc. broke the shackles of injustice. Meanwhile the wrongs of the slave sy.tern did not release the slave from his duty of faithfulness to God through faithfulness to his unjust earthly master. Serfdom recognised some right, on the part of the slave, rights to the soil as a human tree, not to be transplanted. Wage earning' labour w.is the last stage which labour had reached. Too often "it was "liberty to starve." Crushed by competition, finding freedom of contract beneath the lash of hunger to be a mockery, tbe labourer toiled for mere existence. It i. the duty of Christianity to address itself to this great evil of our industrial world. It. must seek a more just, not an equal, division of the fruits of industry. God has not sent hi 3 childien into a world wherein they must starve or be pinched with hunger. Human labour provides more thau enough for ad. Christianity must guide man to regard ench other's needs. Meanwhile, while the toiler may, as a oitizsn, demand hia rights, as an individual he must be faithful to his task. It is oae of the saddest features of industrial oppression that conscientious work becomes alrnoßfc impossible. How oan a woman put oon.cience into her work when she must sew 11,100 buttons on to cards to earn 3_, When 3}d only can be earned by sewing together a pony's bridle with eight buckles aud other stitching, what wonder if tho stitches give and some mother's boy is killed or injured because the work was badly done. Yet up to tbe limit of strength, faith fulness should characterise work done, oven for an oppressor, because God's rewards are given to fidelity. Had Christ not revealed it, we ahould have dreamt of and desired a final adjustment where tho reward shall be, not to tho favoured or fortunate, but to the faithful, As God rewards all faithful labour so should the State seok to do. Tho basis of work should bo a moral one. To regulate it by the number of competitors may bo political economy, but it is not Christian, if aupjht but savage cruelty. Political economy is not, as some would have us think, an immutable law like that of gravitation. Its fault lies in that it deals with man and not with men, with masses and not with individuals. " Men" (says one whose opinion is to be respsoted) " have laughed for the the last thirty years at Ruskin's Political Economy, but I, for one, would rather take my stand upon the prinoiples of his " Munera Pulveris," than upon J,hose of Mill, or Ferdinand Laasolls, or even jevous, for the one reason that Ru.kin has sought to bring the practices and thought of the business mon of the day into harmony with the unselfish prinoiples of Christ." Labour struggles are often unhappily asso» ciated with evil. No vested iniquity has ever beeu overthrown by means wholly pure and peaceful. The child born of an instinct. vo sense of justice is often blind. But in the main the objects sought by labour combinations are just. It is 'the part of Christian mon not to ignore them and leave them to those animated by no higher spirit than that of selfishness. They cannot and ought not to be suppressed. What then is left but to show them a wiso sympathy, and to seek to allay passion, to promote mutual understanding, and to bring to bear upon a movement! mighty aud dangerous if allowed to drift into selfishness and hate, all that is possible of Christ's own spirit of righteousness and love . We havo been too long apathetic. It is not creditable to us that a *,yave of excitement rolls from end to cud of our colony when our railways, our steamers, our conveniences are threatened, but that we should have been unmoved at the knowledge of suffering endured by tho toilers, the fruit of w .lose labour we gladly buy if only it possess tho great merit of cheapness. It is for us ai Christians to seek a higher business maxim than th it of cheap* noss. Love must underlie even commerce ; all trade be uuder the teachings of Christ.