, and doing whatever we have to do
honorably and perfectly, they invariably bring happiness, as much as seems
possible to the nature of man. In all other paths by which that happiness
is pursued there is disappointment, or destruction: for ambition and for
passion there is no rest--no fruition; the fairest pleasures of youth
perish in a darkness greater than their past light: and the loftiest and
purest love too often does but inflame the cloud of life with endless fire
of pain. But, ascending from lowest to highest, through every scale of
human industry, that industry, worthily followed, gives peace. Ask the
laborer in the field, at the forge, or in the mine; ask the patient,
delicate-fingered artisan, or the strong-armed, fiery-hearted worker in
bronze, and in marble, and with the colors of light; and none of these,
who are true workmen, will ever tell you that they have found the law of
heaven an unkind one--that in the sweat of their face they should eat
bread, till they return to the ground; nor that they ever found it an
unrewarded obedience, if, indeed, it was rendered faithfully to the
command, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do--do it with thy might."

These are the two great and constant lessons which our laborers teach us
of the mystery of life. But there is another, and a sadder one, which they
cannot teach us, which we must read on their tombstones.

"Do it with thy might." There have been myriads upon myriads of human
creatures who have obeyed this law,--who have put every breath and nerve
of their being into its toil,--who have devoted every hour, and exhausted
every faculty,--who have bequeathed their unaccomplished thoughts at
death,--who, being dead, have yet spoken, by majesty of memory, and
strength of example. And, at last, what has all this "Might" of humanity
accomplished, in six thousand years of labor and sorrow? What has it
_done_? Take the three chief occupations and arts of men, one by one, and
count their achievements. Begin with the first,--the lord of them
all,--Agriculture. Six thousand years have passed since we were set to
till the ground, from which we were taken. How much of it is tilled? How
much of that which is, wisely or well? In the very centre and chief garden
of Europe,--where the two forms of parent Christianity have had their
fortresses,--where the noble Catholics of the Forest Cantons, and the
noble Protestants of the Vaudois valleys, have maintained, for dateless
ages, thei