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. Whether it be work with the hands, or work with the brain, it is work of some kind that we must do if we would prove ourselves worthy to be a part of the ever-working Universe. And if by disinclination,--or by lethargy of mind and spirit, we decline to share in the splendid “onward and upward” march of toil, the time comes when great Mother Nature will accept us exactly at our own valuation. If we choose to be no more than clods of clay, then as clods of clay she will use us, to make soil for braver feet than our own. If, on the contrary, we strive to be active intelligences, she will equally use us for nobler purposes. The formation of our condition rests absolutely with ourselves. No one person can shape the life of another. The father cannot ensure the fortunes of his son. The mother cannot guarantee the happiness of her daughter. Both mother and father may do their best on these lines, but sooner or later the son and daughter will take their own way and make their own lives. Each individual man or woman must work out his or her own salvation. For this is the Law,--and it is a Law divine and eternal against which there is no appeal. Let us realize, therefore, the Divine Necessity of Work,--and having realized it let us take an honest joy in being able to do any sort of work ourselves, no matter how humble or monotonous such work may be. There is nothing really common even in what is called “common” work. There is nothing undignified in the roughest labour. It is only the “loafer” who loses both self-respect and dignity. The peasant who turns the soil with his spade all day long is a noble and primeval figure in the landscape, and deserves our consideration and respect. The countless thousands of men, working in huge factories, patiently guiding the machinery of giant looms, sweltering their very lives out in the fiery heat of huge furnaces where iron and steel are shaped for the uses of the world--these are the actual body of mankind--the nerves, the muscles, the sinews of humanity. They represent the nobility, the worth, the movement of the age. They are the Working People. And the Working People of this, or of any other nation are the People indeed--the People whose word--if they will only utter it--must inevitably become Law.