Then, to tickle the approbativeness of the slave, it was declared a virtue not to work on Sunday, a most pleasing bit of Tom Sawyer diplomacy.  By following his inclinations and doing nothing, a mysterious, skyey benefit accrues, which the lazy man hopes to have and to hold for eternity.

Then the slaves who do no work on Sunday, point out those who do as beneath them in virtue, and deserving of contempt.  Upon this theory all laws which punish the person who works or plays on Sunday have been passed.  Does God cease work one day in seven, or is the work that He does on Sunday especially different from that which He performs on Tuesday?  The Saturday half-holiday is not “sacred”—­the Sunday holiday is, and we have laws to punish those who “violate” it.  No man can violate the Sabbath; he can, however, violate his own nature, and this he is more apt to do through enforced idleness than either work or play.  Only running water is pure, and stagnant nature of any sort is dangerous—­a breeding-place for disease.

Change of occupation is necessary to mental and physical health.  As it is, most people get too much of one kind of work.  All the week they are chained to a task, a repugnant task because the dose is too big.  They have to do this particular job or starve.  This is slavery, quite as much as when man was bought and sold as a chattel.

Will there not come a time when all men and women will work because it is a blessed gift—­a privilege?  Then, if all worked, wasteful consuming as a business would cease.  As it is, there are many people who do not work at all, and these pride themselves upon it and uphold the Sunday laws.  If the idlers would work, nobody would be overworked.  If this time ever comes shall we not cease to regard it as “wicked” to work at certain times, just as much as we would count it absurd to pass a law making it illegal for us to be happy on Wednesday?  Isn’t good work an effort to produce a useful, necessary or beautiful thing?  If so, good work is a prayer, prompted by a loving heart—­a prayer to benefit and bless.  If prayer is not a desire, backed up by a right human effort to bring about its efficacy, then what is it?

Work is a service performed for ourselves and others.  If I love you I will surely work for you—­in this way I reveal my love.  And to manifest my love in this manner is a joy and gratification to me.  Thus work is for the worker alone and labor is its own reward.  These things being true, if it is wrong to work on Sunday, it is wrong to love on Sunday; every smile is a sin, every caress a curse, and all tenderness a crime.