, briefly, work _with_ God. Foolish work is work
_against_ God. And work done with God, which He will help, may be
briefly described as 'Putting in Order'--that is, enforcing God's law of
order, spiritual and material, over men and things. The first thing you
have to do, essentially; the real 'good work' is, with respect to men,
to enforce justice, and with respect to things, to enforce tidiness, and
fruitfulness. And against these two great human deeds, justice and
order, there are perpetually two great demons contending,--the devil of
iniquity, or inequity, and the devil of disorder, or of death; for death
is only consummation of disorder. You have to fight these two fiends
daily. So far as you don't fight against the fiend of iniquity, you work
for him. You 'work iniquity,' and the judgment upon you, for all your
'Lord, Lord's,' will be 'Depart from me, ye that work iniquity.' And so
far as you do not resist the fiend of disorder, you work disorder, and
you yourself do the work of Death, which is sin, and has for its wages,
Death himself.

Observe then, all wise work is mainly threefold in character. It is
honest, useful, and cheerful.

I. It is HONEST. I hardly know anything more strange than that you
recognise honesty in play, and you do not in work. In your lightest
games, you have always some one to see what you call 'fair-play.' In
boxing, you must hit fair; in racing, start fair. Your English watchword
is fair-play, your English hatred, foul-play. Did it ever strike you
that you wanted another watchword also, fair-work, and another hatred
also, foul-work? Your prize-fighter has some honour in him yet; and so
have the men in the ring round him: they will judge him to lose the
match, by foul hitting. But your prize-merchant gains his match by foul
selling, and no one cries out against that. You drive a gambler out of
the gambling-room who loads dice, but you leave a tradesman in
flourishing business, who loads scales! For observe, all dishonest
dealing _is_ loading scales. What does it matter whether I get short
weight, adulterate substance, or dishonest fabric? The fault in the
fabric is incomparably the worst of the two. Give me short measure of
food, and I only lose by you; but give me adulterate food, and I die by
you. Here, then, is your chief duty, you workmen and tradesmen--to be
true to yourselves, and to us who would help you. We can do nothing for
you, nor you for yourselves, without honesty. Get tha