There is a well-known story of an old farmer calling his three idle sons around him when on his deathbed, to impart to them an important secret.  “My sons,” said he, “a great treasure lies hid in the estate which I am about to leave to you.”  The old man gasped.  “Where is it hid?” exclaimed the sons in a breath.  “I am about to tell you,” said the old man; “you will have to dig for it——­” but his breath failed him before he could impart the weighty secret; and he died.  Forthwith the sons set to work with spade and mattock upon the long neglected fields, and they turned up every sod and clod upon the estate.  They discovered no treasure, but they learnt to work; and when fields were sown, and the harvests came, lo! the yield was prodigious, in consequence of the thorough tillage which they had undergone.  Then it was that they discovered the treasure concealed in the estate, of which their wise old father had advised them.

Labour is at once a burden, a chastisement, an honour, and a pleasure.  It may be identified with poverty, but there is also glory in it.  It bears witness, at the same time, to our natural wants and to our manifold needs.  What were man, what were life, what were civilization, without labour?  All that is great in man comes of labour;—­greatness in art, in literature, in science.  Knowledge—­“the wing wherewith we fly to heaven”—­is only acquired through labour.  Genius is but a capability of labouring intensely:  it is the power of making great and sustained efforts.  Labour may be a chastisement, but it is indeed a glorious one.  It is worship, duty, praise, and immortality,—­for those who labour with the highest aims, and for the purest purposes.

There are many who murmur and complain at the law of labour under which we live, without reflecting that obedience to it is not only in conformity with the Divine will, but also necessary for the development of intelligence, and for the thorough enjoyment of our common nature.  Of all wretched men, surely the idle are the most so;—­those whose life is barren of utility, who have nothing to do except to gratify their senses.  Are not such men the most querulous, miserable, and dissatisfied of all, constantly in a state of ennui, alike useless to themselves and to others—­mere cumberers of the earth, who when removed are missed by none, and whom none regret?  Most wretched and ignoble lot, indeed, is the lot of the idlers.

Who have helped the world onward so much as the workers; men who have had to work for necessity or from choice?  All that we call progress—­civilization, well-being, and prosperity—­depends upon industry, diligently applied,—­from the culture of a barley-stalk, to the construction of a steamship,—­from the stitching of a collar, to the sculpturing of “the statue that enchants the world.”