Page:Education and Life; (IA educationlife00bakerich).pdf/247

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knowledge and power to the performance of to-*day's duty.

Lowell in his "Vision of Sir Launfal" imparts one of the sweetest lessons man may learn. Sir Launfal is to set forth on the morrow in search of the Holy Grail, the cup used by our Saviour at the last supper, and in his sleep there comes to him a true vision. As in his dream he rides forth with pride of heart, at his castle gate a leper begs alms, and in scorn he tosses him a piece of gold. Years of fruitless search pass, and as he returns old, broken, poor, and homeless, he again meets the leper at the castle gate, and in Christ's name he offers a cup of water. And lo! the leper stands forth as the Son of God, and proclaims the Holy Grail is found in the wooden cup shared with communion of heart. The morn came and Sir Launfal hung up his idle armor. He had found the object of his quest in the humble duty at hand.

A poet of our day quaintly but not irreverently writes of the future life, "When the Master of all Good Workmen shall set us to work anew." There we shall work for the joy of it; there we shall know things in their reality; there we shall enjoy the perfect appreciation of the Master, and know the blessedness of labor performed in His service. Thus the lesson is good for this world as well as the next.

"And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame;
And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame;
But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star,
Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They Are."