y, like an
echo of the universal work surging in the world, while the calm of the
Infinite spread itself through the precincts of the church.

All those men, accustomed to the slow, regular, quiet duties of the
church, with long periods of rest, admired the nervous activity of
Sagrario.

"You will kill yourself, child," said the old organ-blower. "I know
very well what it is like, I have done something of the same sort; I
blow and blow at those bellows, and when it is a mass with much
music, such as Don Luis loves, I end by cursing the organ and him who
invented it, for indeed it nearly breaks my arms."

"Work!" said the bell-ringer with emphasis. "Work is a punishment from
God! You all know its origin. It was the eternal penalty imposed on
our first parents by the Lord when He drove them out of Paradise. It
is a chain that we must drag on for ever."

"No, senor," replied the shoemaker. "As I have read in the newspapers,
work is the greatest of all the virtues, not a punishment; laziness is
the mother of vice, and work is a virtue. Is it not so, Don Gabriel?"

The shoemaker looked at the master, watching for his words as a
thirsty man looks for water.

"Work," said Gabriel, "is neither a punishment nor a virtue; it is a
hard law to which we have to submit for self-preservation and for the
welfare of the species. Without work life could not exist."

And with the same fervid enunciation with which he had in former times
swayed the multitude at those meetings of protest against society, he
explained to this half-dozen men and the quiet sewer, who stopped her
machine to listen, the greatness of universal work, which every day
laboured on the earth, to subdue it and force it to yield sustenance
for man.

It was a struggle the whole twenty-four hours against the blind forces
of Nature. The army of work extended over the whole globe, exploring
the continents, leaping to the islands, sailing the seas, and
descending to the bowels of the earth. How many were its soldiers? No
one could count them--millions and millions. At daybreak no one was
absent from the roll-call; the casualties were replaced, the gaps that
poverty and misfortune opened in the ranks were filled up immediately.
As soon as the sun rose the factory chimney began to smoke, the hammer
broke the stone, the file bit the metal, the plough furrowed the
earth, the ovens were lighted, the pump worked its piston, the hatchet
sounded in the wood, the locomotive