Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; Social problems
Older than all preached Gospels was this unpreached,
inarticulate, but ineradicable, forever-enduring Gospel: Work,
and therein have well-being. Man, Son of Earth and of Heaven,
lies there not, in the innermost heart of thee, a Spirit of
active Method, a Force for Work;--and burns like a painfully
smouldering fire, giving thee no rest till thou unfold it, till
thou write it down in beneficent Facts around thee! What is
immethodic, waste, thou shalt make methodic, regulated, arable;
obedient and productive to thee. Wheresoever thou findest
Disorder, there is thy eternal enemy; attack him swiftly, subdue
him; make Order of him, the subject not of Chaos, but of
Intelligence, Divinity and Thee! The thistle that grows in thy
path, dig it out, that a blade of useful grass, a drop of
nourishing milk, may grow there instead. The waste cotton-shrub,
gather its waste white down, spin it, weave it; that, in place
of idle litter, there may be folded webs, and the naked skin of
man be covered.
But above all, where thou findest Ignorance, Stupidity, Brute-
mindedness,--yes, there, with or without Church-tithes and
Shovel-hat, with or without Talfourd-Mahon Copyrights, or were it
with mere dungeons and gibbets and crosses, attack it, I say;
smite it wisely, unweariedly, and rest not while thou livest and
it lives; but smite, smite, in the name of God! The Highest
God, as I understand it, does audibly so command thee; still
audibly, if thou have ears to hear. He, even He, with his
_un_spoken voice, awfuler than any Sinai thunders or syllabled
speech of Whirlwinds; for the SILENCE of deep Eternities, of
Worlds from beyond the morning-stars, does it not speak to thee?
The unborn Ages; the old Graves, with their long-mouldering
dust, the very tears that wetted it now all dry,--do not these
speak to thee, what ear hath not heard? The deep Death-kingdoms,
the Stars in their never-resting courses, all Space and all Time,
proclaim it to thee in continual silent admonition. Thou too, if
ever man should, shalt work while it is called Today. For the
Night cometh, wherein no man can work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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