In sun and moon and star
His message shines!
The flowers that fleck the green fields are
His fragrant lines.
His whisper in the breeze,
And His the voice
That bids the leaves upon the trees
Sing and rejoice.
Go forth, O soul! nor fear
Nor doubt, for He
Shall make the ears of faith to hear—
The eyes to see.
(3494)
WORD, THE, A HAMMER
Thor was the god of thunder. The most
prized of all his possessions was his magic
hammer. This was red hot, and always returned
to his hand ready to be thrown again.
He used it to drive boundary stakes, and
also to punish his enemies. The ancient
Northern peoples made the sign of the hammer,
as later Christians did the cross, to
ward off evils and to secure blessings.
What an allegory, all this, of the
Word of God! (Text.)
(3495)
Words—See Glitter versus Depth.
WORK
It was while Moses was at his common
task that the call came to him. This wilderness
training was simply a third school which
he entered to fit him for the great work of
his life. When God wants a man he usually
calls one who is busy among the commonplace
things of life. Commonplace duties are
always glorified in God's sight. When God
wanted a prophet he selected Amos from
among the farmer-shepherds. When He
wanted a poet He called a lad from keeping
sheep. When He wanted an apostle He
called a swearing tar from mending his net
on the beach of Galilee. When He wanted
a missionary He selected a Paul from
among the tent-makers. When He wanted
a deliverer of Israel He called a man from
the commonplace duties of the desert. When
God wanted to show man how much He
loved him and honored toil, He chose to incarnate
Himself in the carpenter of Nazareth.
"This is the gospel of labor,
Ring it ye bells of the kirk;
The Lord of Love, came down from above,
To live with the men who work;
This is the rose He planted,
Here is the thorn-curst soil,
Heaven is blest, with perfect rest,
But the blessing of earth is toil."
(Text.)
(3496)
Paul was not ashamed to work with his hands, altho he had been brought up at the feet of Gamaliel and taught according to the perfect manner of the law. He had not forgotten the custom of the Jews, who always taught their sons in early youth to work at some trade or handicraft. A true saying is that "an idle brain is the devil's workshop." Miss Dryer, a Chicago missionary, in addressing the ministers' meeting of that city in behalf of girls' sewing-schools, made the significant statement that in all her experience of many years she had never known of a fallen woman who knew how to sew. (Text.)
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Man's work is to labor and leaven
As best he may—earth here with heaven,
'Tis work for work's sake that he's needing;
Let him work on and on as speeding
Work's end, but not dream of succeeding!
Because if success were intended,
Why, heaven would begin ere earth ended.
—Browning.
(3498)
See Genius and Work.
Work a Necessity—See Industry and
Longevity.
WORK AND ART
Between digging a ditch to drain a meadow
and composing a sonnet, what is there in
common? Nevertheless, if we look closely
into the matter, the ditch and the sonnet are
much the same thing. We might even fairly
challenge that category of "useful" and
"fine." The useful are surely fine, for nothing
is finer than use; and the fine, if they be
not in a high sense useful, are not fine after
all. The ditch is dug to increase the serviceableness
to man of nature; the sonnet is
composed to enable man to discern in nature
a beauty (or serviceableness) to which he
had heretofore been blind. From a broad
standpoint, there is little to choose between
them. The ditch is nothing in itself, but
neither, strictly speaking, is the sonnet. They
are both means to ends. The ditch is, perhaps,
more distant from its end than the
sonnet, but it is a link in the same chain.
Moreover, the ditch will always be an honest
