will not make you rich, but hunchbacked; if you do not sell your soul to the devil, you will not make money."[1]
And you will condemn such a man and exile him to Siberia, when you are yourselves the sole cause of his crimes.
37. You see now, reader, how much evil there is in this wrong, this neglect of labor for bread. You see the evil that white hands may do, and the good that labor-stained ones can cause to spring from the earth. You see, in fine, the good result of making known this commandment.
Have good writers given themselves much trouble to explain and teach it? They should have shown how useful is its observance, how wrong its evasion. They should have endeavored, by speech and writing and by religious ceremonies, to exhort all the world to manual labor. That would be worth a thousand times more than founding a faith on the works and merits of Christ alone, and of abandoning the task prescribed by God. It would be well if writer and preacher should set the example; but how can we make people labor who find it so great a fatigue to carry their food to their mouths?
38. If I were, in truth, a man who would avoid labor, and who knew nothing of it, and still sought to impose these opinions on others, every one would have the right to spit in my face, and
- ↑ Russian proverb.
