In the world's work, there are many today who become offended for the same reason that the laborers, who had borne the burden and the heat of the day, became offended. But that is because they do not understand the principle of service and wages. In every industrial or commercial institution rewards in the way of salary or promotion are made dependent, not upon the length of service, but upon the quality of service and the spirit put into the service. In a certain mercantile institution, for example--an institution with which you are perhaps all acquainted--there was employed not many years ago a young man of unusual ambition and energy. There were then in the department in which he was placed, men who had been in the employ of the institution for fifteen or twenty years. This young man gave value received in return for the compensation he was given. He put quality into his service; he put spirit into his service; he threw himself into his work body and soul. Before long, he was made head of the department. Those who had served for many years were offended, and murmured against the manager. But the reward came, as rewards worth while must {247} always come, for quality and spirit of service. The young man has continued to give to the institution the best that it was in him to give; he has continued, too, to advance; today he stands next to the superintendent, with the outlook that ere long, when the superintendent retires, he may become himself the superintendent. In the meantime, men of long years of service are still in the same positions that they held when this young man entered the employ of the institution. Promotion and reward are based on merit. [Sidenote: The value of service in the Church.] If we turn now to the spiritual life, we shall find that the same principle obtains. Length of membership, or service, in the Church does not assure exaltation. Indeed, there are many men in the Church who have belonged to it from childhood to a ripe old age, who may nevertheless receive a very meager compensation. Theirs has been a life of membership only. They have rendered little or no service; and such service as they have rendered has been of inferior quality and questionable spirit. In reward, they will receive whatsoever is right. On the other hand, men who have had the privilege of belonging to the Church in this life for only a short time may receive as large a reward as the others, or even a larger reward than theirs. For again, these members of few years, have in those few years rendered service of a quality far superior to that of those of long years of membership. In the spiritual life or in the temporal life it is true that one may hope to get in return only as much as one gives. It is a law of physics that action and reaction are equal and opposite. An adaptation of that law may be applied here. {248} When we enter into service, temporal or spiritual, our lord will give us whatsoever is right.