Labor, A Hero of—See Energy Indomitable. LABOR, AVOIDING "I like to sew where there is no thread in the machine, it runs so easily," said a little girl. A good many people, I think, are pretty fond of running their machines without thread. When I hear a boy talking very largely of the grand things he would do if he only could and if things and circumstances were only different, and then neglecting every daily duty and avoiding work and lessons, I think he is running his machine without any thread. When I see a girl very sweet and pleasant abroad, ready to do anything for a stranger, and cross and disagreeable in her home, she, too, is running her machine without any thread. Ah, this sewing without thread is very easy indeed, and the life machine will make a great buzzing! But labor, time, and force will in the end be far worse than lost.—The Friend.
(1746)
LABOR BY PATIENTS
Patient labor at the Elgin State Hospital
(Illinois) has become one of the most striking
features in any of the seventeen charitable
institutions of Illinois.
Fiscal Supervisor Whipp, of the State Board of Administration, has just returned from Elgin, where he has been investigating the construction of buildings of cement blocks veneered with granite.
Patients have already built a cold storage room and bath-house, and now are at work on a cottage for the acute insane. They make the veneered blocks in the basement of the institution in winter. The process itself is comparatively new. It has been employed no more than a year at Elgin, but has worked out with remarkable success—Boston Journal.
(1747)
LABOR FOR THE COMMUNITY
The worker bee is never found loafing
while the sun is shining. Their work is
wholly for the hive; for the community that
is, and they not infrequently work themselves
to death gathering and carrying
pollen, with which they load themselves down
heavily.
The work of the truly unselfish life
is a willingness to work, and even if
need be, to die for the good of mankind.
(1748)
LABOR IN VAIN
The Pyramids of Egypt are among the
seven wonders of the world. Cheops, said
to be the largest of them all, covers an area
of over thirteen acres, is larger than Madison
Square, New York, and twice the height
of Trinity Church spire. It contains enough
material to build a city as large as Washington,
including all its public buildings.
Four hundred thousand men were employed
twenty years to build it. The purpose of its
erection was that it might be the tomb of
kings.
How much better would have been the result if all this labor had been spent to serve those who were alive and the then future generations.
(1749)
LABOR, OPPORTUNITY FOR
The verses below carrying a helpful lesson, are by Ellen M. H. Gates:
If you can not on the ocean
Sail among the swiftest fleet,
Rocking on the highest billows,
Laughing at the storms you meet
You can stand among the sailors,
Anchored yet within the bay;
You can lend a hand to help them,
As they launch their boats away.
If you are too weak to journey
Up the mountain, steep and high,
You can stand within the valley,
While the multitudes go by;
You can chant in happy measure,
As they slowly pass along;
Tho they may forget the singer,
They will not forget the song.
Do not, then, stand idly waiting
For some greater work to do;
Fortune is a lazy goddess—
She will never come to you.
Go and toil in any vineyard,
Do not fear to do or dare;
If you want a field of labor,
You can find it anywhere. (Text.)
(1750)
LABOR-SAVING DEVICES
I have heard old men say that the mere
easy use of friction-matches saves every day
for each active man and woman ten minutes
of life. I think that is true. You are not
old enough to remember the adventures of
the boy called out of his bed in the morning
to go and fetch a pan of coals from the next
neighbor's. The lad tumbles into his clothes,
plows through the snow, finds that Mrs.
