p. 16 | Work a Privilege by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 3, 1904

Work a Privilege

By Editor

Work a Privilege.—Some one has well said: "The chance to do work is not a penalty, it is a privilege. Life is so constituted that the man or the woman who has not got some responsibility is thereby deprived of the deepest happiness that can come to mankind." It is most emphatically true. More miserable than the Flora McFlimsey of Madison Square, who among all her dresses had "nothing to wear," is the individual with nothing to do. There is no corruptor of character like idleness. It is better morally, physically, mentally, for a man to do something for nothing, rather than nothing for nothing. Much of present teaching is leading many to look upon labor as a curse, and idleness and amusement the chief end of man. It is a woful sign of the times, the sure forerunner of degeneracy, revolution, fanaticism, anarchy, and destruction. The one only hope of the world is in Him who said, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work."