Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 June 1876 — Work. [ARTICLE]

Work.

When we murmur about our work, we seldom reflect how much more pitiful would be the condition of the most laborious among us if we were suddenly to be deprived of it. We often look upon it as a burden, when it is in reality a bless-’ ing in disguise. We picture to ourselves how much happier we should be without it, and envy those who are born to a heritage of idleness, when we should be, in truth, the most wretched beings alive could we exchange places with them for a day. What an angel of mercy has it proved to many! W hat a solace for vacant hours! what a panacea for troubles, sentimental or otherwise! Did not John Bunyan bless it, think you, in Bedford jail,"where he beguiled the time with toiling over his Pilgrim'» Program Has it not ministered to many a mind diseased, plucked from the heart many a rooted sorrow? Is it not the only sure antidote to ennui? a remedy against a host of ills to which flesh and spirit are heir? Has it not rendered us oblivious to injuries and That the money value of work is not its ultimate charm is well attested by those who, having been hard workers for the greater portion of their lives, retire from business, expecting to enjoy themselves and their hard-earned wealth, but finding the weeks and months heavy upon their hands, finally resume thpir old habits of industry, having made the important discovery that they had been enjoying themselves all their days; that their true - contentment was like the statue hidden in the marble block—something to be wrought out by toil; that work was the only talisman against low spirits and hypochondria. We rarely, if ever, hear busy people complaining of megrims; they do not often swell tlie number of suicides. They have little time to spare for their neighbor’s affairs, since the sincere worker must pin his mind to his work, if he would accomplish anything worth dignifying with the name, and not some slop-shop makeshift.

We sometimes feel that if we could only choose our work or exchange with another, we should be better pleased and more successful; then should we become earnest it its pursuit; then should we cease to slight and slander it; then would our efforts be as Spontaneous as the bird’s song. But is it not wiser for us to do honestly that which falls in our way, if it be only to darn stockings or to scour knives, without waiting for anything more worthy of our strength or talents ? Is it not a reproach to Him who assigns It tosuppose it a mistake and something beneath our abilities, as well as a vanity in us, to imagine Ourselves capable of more ambitious tasks? And are we not assured that - “Who sweeps a room as by God's laws, Makes that and the action tlnet” —Lfarper't Batar. That was a philosophical urchin who,, when he was nine years old, having lost his rabbits by dogs and bls pigeons by rats, said to his little sister: “Sis, my opinion i,s that the happiest period of a is when he is between three and four years old?’ - ;“ No ■wonder New York city is in a continual muss. It has over-4,00Q lawyers.