LABOR NOT A CURSE

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 10, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 50.

LABOR NOT A CURSE.

A Common Misconception.

On November 3 President Eliot, of Harvard University, spoke before the Methodist Ministers' Meeting of Boston. Among other things, he is reported as saying:—

As I weigh the forces that affect mankind, and look back upon the course of human history and the progress of Christianity, it seems to me the finest and greatest civilizer is steady work. That is the way by which the race is lifted up out of barbarism into semi-civilization and into civilization. Labor, steady labor, is the great civilizer.

Yet we must admit that the church, and the school, and the university in Christian lands encounter a difficulty in this regard at the very opening of our Bible. The Bible represents labor as a curse, and it had a profound effect on all Christian theology until 100 years ago, and we encounter the false reflection of it in labor unions to-day. The labor unions adopt the Genesis view of labor as a curse, a thing to be avoided.

In the intellectual calling, such as you and I follow, we have learned that labor, so far from being a curse, is almost the first of blessings, and that the limit of labor for us is nothing but the capacity of the human body to endure labor in full health and strength.

Labor is a great blessing; and it is never represented in any other way in the Bible. Nowhere are we told in Genesis, or elsewhere, that labor is a curse. So far from labor's being a curse, God gave it as one of the means of triumphing over the curse. The cause of the curse is sin. The serpent partook of the curse; man partook of the curse; all nature became tainted because of man's sin. But the curse came upon the ground for man's sake, to be a blessing to man. How?—In this way: If the earth had continued to yield according to its pristine vigor, man never would have known labor; the merest effort would have sufficed to gather sufficient to subsist. The result would have been a life of idle selfishness. Therefore God cursed the ground for man's sake, in order that he must labor, and so reap labor's benefits, a stronger character and a purer life.

President Eliot's misconception of Bible teaching is parallel with many other current misconceptions. It is not the Book that is at fault, but its interpreters.