tion, driven from his home: it is indeed very clear
that God means all thoroughly good work and talk to be done for nothing.
Baruch, the scribe, did not get a penny a line for writing Jeremiah's
second roll for him, I fancy; and St. Stephen did not get bishop's pay
for that long sermon of his to the Pharisees; nothing but stones. For
indeed that is the world-father's proper payment. So surely as any of
the world's children work for the world's good, honestly, with head and
heart; and come to it, saying, 'Give us a little bread, just to keep the
life in us,' the world-father answers them, 'No, my children, not bread;
a stone, if you like, or as many as you need, to keep you quiet.' But
the hand-workers are not so ill off as all this comes to. The worst that
can happen to _you_ is to break stones; not be broken by them. And for
you there will come a time for better payment; some day, assuredly, more
pence will be paid to Peter the Fisherman, and fewer to Peter the Pope;
we shall pay people not quite so much for talking in Parliament and
doing nothing, as for holding their tongues out of it and doing
something; we shall pay our ploughman a little more and our lawyer a
little less, and so on: but, at least, we may even now take care that
whatever work is done shall be fully paid for; and the man who does it
paid for it, not somebody else; and that it shall be done in an orderly,
soldierly, well-guided, wholesome way, under good captains and
lieutenants of labour; and that it shall have its appointed times of
rest, and enough of them; and that in those times the play shall be
wholesome play, not in theatrical gardens, with tin flowers and gas
sunshine, and girls dancing because of their misery; but in true
gardens, with real flowers, and real sunshine, and children dancing
because of their gladness; so that truly the streets shall be full (the
'streets,' mind you, not the gutters) of children, playing in the midst
thereof. We may take care that working-men shall have at least as good
books to read as anybody else, when they've time to read them; and as
comfortable fire-sides to sit at as anybody else, when they've time to
sit at them. This, I think, can be managed for you, my working friends,
in the good time.

IV. I must go on, however, to our last head, concerning ourselves all,
as workers. What is wise work, and what is foolish work? What the
difference between sense and nonsense, in daily occupation?

Well, wise work is