PROGRAMME 
 
 OF 
 
 A COURSE OF LECTURES 
 
 ON 
 
 LABOR AND CAPITAL. 
 
 The Rev. Cliauncey Giles will deliver a Course of 
 Three Lectures on The Mutual Interests and Rela- 
 tions OF Capital and Labor. This subject is exciting 
 a wide and deep interest at the present time, among all 
 classes of people, but no more than its intrinsic impor- 
 tance demands. It is intimately related to the finan- 
 cial prosperity of individuals and the whole nation, 
 and to the civil, moral, and religious progress of all 
 
 372674 
 
LABOR AND CAPITAL, 
 
 classes of the people. It is the common opinion that 
 labor is a curse to be avoided if possible, and that 
 there must be an irrepressible conflict between the 
 laborer and the capitalist. It is the purpose of these 
 lectures to show that this opinion is not true ; that, 
 on the contrary, labor is essential to human happi- 
 ness, and the Divinely appointed means of forming 
 intelligent and noble character; that labor and capital 
 are inseparably connected by mutual interests, and 
 are dependent upon each other for their value. The 
 subject will be presented, not merely from a tempo- 
 rary and financial point of view, but in the light of 
 universal principles which exist in human nature and 
 govern all man's activities and relations to his fellow- 
 man and to the Lord. The lectures are undertaken 
 with the hope that some aid may be given to the 
 solution of problems that are now pressing upon the 
 attention of all men with an urgency before unknown, 
 and which must continue to do so until they result 
 
LABOR AND CAPITAL, 
 
 in disastrous conflict or find a peaceful solution in 
 co-operation for the general good. 
 
 The Lectures will be delivered on successive Sun- 
 day evenings in the Church of the New Jerusalem, 
 corner of Twenty-second and Chestnut Streets, to 
 which all who are interested in the subject, but es- 
 pecially mechanics and laboring men and women of 
 every class, are invited. They will find a pleasant 
 church, agreeable music, polite attention, and a cor- 
 dial welcome. The Services will commence promptly 
 at a quarter to eight o'clock. 
 
LABOR AND CAPITAL. 
 
 SUNDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY ist. 
 
 SUBJECT: 
 
 Labor as a Curse, and as a Blessing. How to avoid 
 the Curse and secure the Blessing. 
 
 SUNDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 8th. 
 
 SUBJECT: 
 
 The Conflict between Labor and Capital. The 
 Cause of it \ the Evil of it ; the Means of Set- 
 tling it. 
 
 SUNDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY isth. 
 
 SUBJECT 
 
 Manual Labor and Mechanical Employments as 
 Means of Human Culture. 
 
 The seats in this Church are free to all, 
 both morning and evening. 
 
Sleventti Series. No. 1. 
 
 LABOR AS A CURSE AND AS A BLESSING, 
 
 BY KEY. CHAUNCEY GILES. 
 
 The subject to which I invite your attention this even- 
 ing, touches the interests of every man, woman, and child. 
 It enters into the daily life of humanity. Labor con- 
 stitutes the warp and woof of every industry and every 
 human good. It is not merely a question of bread, or of 
 dollars and cents. It has a wider and deeper meaning 
 ^ than more or less abundance of clothes or acres. It is the 
 Q% corner-stone of social, civil, and religious progress. It is 
 a question of how to employ our time, to use our strength, 
 to exercise our thought, to direct our affections in the 
 wisest way to supply our natural wants, and to secure the 
 means of comfort, happiness, and the development of the 
 noblest human faculties. It is not, therefore, a question 
 inappropriate to the day, and to a house dedicated to the 
 worship and service of the Lord. It confronts the indi- 
 vidual, the state, and the church at every step, and presses 
 for solution. It involves every effort to lighten human 
 burdens, to alleviate human suffering, and to secure the 
 border, comfort, prosperity, and happiness of the people. 
 It is not my intention to speak of organizations for the 
 protection and advancement of the interests of the laborer, 
 
9 
 
 LABOR AS A CURSE, 
 
 or of the bearing of national or State legislation upon the 
 subject. They have their influence and use. I propose 
 rather to speak of labor in its application to the individual, 
 to what every man and every woman can do, to-day, in the 
 present circumstances, in every condition, to remove the 
 curse from labor, and gain its greatest and most enduring 
 rewards. It is my purpose to point out some remedies for 
 the hardships which we all suffer, and which we can apply 
 to our work, to-morrow, and every day of our lives. No 
 combination of men can prevent the greatest curse of labor, 
 no legislation can avert its evils or secure its greatest good. 
 Let us then try to discover what the evils are that we 
 desire to remove, and then we may be able to discover 
 their remedies. 
 
 Strictly speaking, labor is not a curse or an evil in any 
 sense. It is a blessing, not merely in its reward of wages, 
 but in itself. Even in its most oppressive forms it is better 
 than idleness. This is the testimony of history and of 
 individual experience in all ages of the world, and of the 
 Lord Himself. It exists in the nature of the human mind, 
 and is organized in every part of the material body. Look 
 at a man from his limbs, his muscles, his brain, his senses, 
 his intellect, his affections. What was he endowed with 
 this miraculous organization for ? What was he made for ? 
 To be idle? To eat and drink and sleep like an animal? 
 Was the hand, that miracle of mechanism and power, made 
 merely to use a spoon and wear gloves ? to be kept white 
 and soft like a baby's? What was every organ in the 
 body made for ? Was it not for man's happiness ? How 
 is he to secure the intended good ? By use, by action, by 
 labor. There is no other possible way. Action is the law 
 of life ; it is the effect and sign of life ; it is the means of 
 
AND AS A BLESSING, 
 
 3 
 
 gaining larger measures of life ; it is the essential instru- 
 ment of perfecting life. 
 
 The higher we rise in the scale of being the more irre- 
 pressible the activity. Let us learn a lesson from nature. 
 The stone is motionless. It cannot change its form or 
 place. Would you like to be a stone ? The plant, though 
 unconscious and anchored to the earth, is alive and full of 
 action, and grows into a multitude of useful and beautiful 
 forms. Here is more life, more action, and greater use. 
 But would this satisfy you ? Would you like to be an 
 apple-tree or a lily, though it neither toils nor spins ? The 
 animal stands in a higher grade of life. It can see, hear, 
 feel, move, and act in many ways impossible to the plant. 
 But would it content you to be an oyster or an ox ? As 
 we rise to man we find a distinct and higher class of facul- 
 ties. His range of action is vastly enlarged. He has 
 more tools to work with, more labor to perform, and he 
 gains larger and richer rewards. Every step of ascent in 
 the scale of being demands greater and more varied labor 
 by which we obtain a higher good. No living creature is 
 exempt from work. The worm and the fish and the animal 
 must labor. Action in some form is the condition of exist- 
 ence. The fowls of the air on swift wings are constantly 
 searching for food, and often they must go supperless to 
 bed. A wild animal which has no master and is free to go 
 and come, the idea which many entertain of a happy life, 
 must keep on the alert for its dinner, or go without it. 
 If man had never sinned he could have found his happi- 
 ness only in useful occupation. Every muscle in his body, 
 and every faculty of his mind reveals that fact more clearly 
 than words have the power to do. The necessity for labor 
 is organized in our minds and in every fibre of our bodies. 
 
4 
 
 LABOR AS A CURSE, 
 
 If we could be fed with every luxury without lifting a 
 finger ; if we could be clothed like the lilies and housed 
 like a prince, without any effort, we could not live without 
 labor, because all our faculties are not only created by use, 
 but their existence cannot be maintained without it, conse- 
 quently every one, whatever may be his condition in life, 
 must work. If he is not compelled by the necessity of 
 earning his bread, he is driven by a sterner necessity to 
 labor for pleasure, for digestion, and even for existence, 
 and this is the most degrading of all work. Labor viewed 
 in itself is a law of the Divine order. It has its origin in 
 the Divine perfections, it is universal in its application, it 
 is the means to every good. This is the positive and un- 
 changing fact. 
 
 But the idea is common, well-nigh universal, that labor 
 in some useful employment is a curse. Keligious teachers 
 represent it as a penalty inflicted upon man for disobedi- 
 ence to the Lord, in eating the forbidden fruit, and they 
 picture heaven as a state of everlasting and constant rest. 
 Poetry, painting, and fiction represent a happy life as free 
 from all useful and regular employment. To be surrounded 
 with everything that can minister to pleasure ; to possess 
 abundance of wealth which relieves from the necessity of 
 labor, commands the services of others, enables its possessor 
 to remain at home in idleness and indulgence, or to roam 
 abroad, as inclination may dictate, is the common ideal of 
 happiness. The man who threw down his shovel and de- 
 clared that he would never do another stroke of work, when 
 informed that he had become heir to great wealth, expressed 
 in a most emphatic manner the common sentiment which per- 
 vades literature, controls feeling, enters the general thought, 
 and infiuences the opinions of all classes of people. It is 
 
AND AS A BLESSING. 
 
 5 
 
 a totally false view. It originates in human selfishness and 
 ignorance, and confounds the evils which are caused by the 
 abuse of a good thing with the thing itself. This is as 
 absurd as it would be to condemn delicious food as wholly 
 evil because some men destroy their health by gluttony, or 
 to regard fire as man's enemy because it sometimes burns 
 his flesh and consumes his house. Let us, then, distin- 
 guish between the use and the abuse, between the good 
 and the evil of labor, and discover, if we can, how to avoid 
 the evil and secure the good. 
 
 The curse of labor does not consist in action, for it is only 
 in action that we experience pleasure. Children are intensely 
 active ; they work harder than their parents. They are con- 
 stantly busy, and it is impossible to keep them still. Weari- 
 ness from hard work is not the curse of labor. Men will hunt 
 and fish and play ball, and men and women will dance and 
 climb mountains, and wander from city to city to see old 
 and new wonders, until they are ready to faint from weari- 
 ness. Necessity does not drive them. No taskmaster 
 stands over them with a whip. They expect no wages ; 
 yet they do not complain. They do not regard the ex- 
 hausting labor as a 'curse. They rejoice rather in the ex- 
 ertion. If weariness is the curse of labor, why should the 
 child run from one thing to another until ready to drop 
 from exhaustion ? Why should men and women pursue 
 pleasure until they faint from weariness, and expose 
 themselves to dangers which rarely exist in any useful 
 employments ? 
 
 The answer is not difficult to find. They are led on by 
 some delight, or the hope of gaining it. Suppose the 
 laborer could find the same pleasure in his work, would it 
 not take the curse out of it ? Some men and women do 
 
6 
 
 LABOR AS A CURSE, 
 
 find such a delight in their occupations, and they are 
 happy when engaged in tbem. They do not work from 
 any compulsion by others ; they do not work for the wages. 
 They do not consider them. They are led along by delight 
 in their work, or in the use it may be to those they love. 
 The mother does not think of the wages when she is work- 
 ing for her child. She will watch and wait and minister 
 with the utmost patience. Cannot this principle be applied 
 to all employments, — to cutting stone, to mining coal, to 
 making a shoe, to building a house, or doing anything 
 that will be of service to any human being ? Observe, it 
 is not the special thing done. That may be repulsive in 
 itself. Who has more repulsive work to do than the 
 mother ? And yet she finds a pleasure in it. It is the 
 motive for which it is done. It is not the personal good 
 she gains, but the service she renders. Cannot that 
 motive be extended ? Can it not enter into all labor of 
 every kind ? 
 
 But there are real evils connected with labor. It be- 
 comes an evil when it hinders the attainment of the pur- 
 pose for which man was created. It does this when it 
 is too long protracted and exhausting, when it absorbs 
 all our time and strength. Then it becomes merely 
 animal, the exercise of muscles. The higher and truly 
 human faculties are not brought into exercise. A man is 
 more than an animal to be fed, a horse or an ox to bear 
 burdens. He possesses higher qualities than instinct. He 
 has a mind to whose capacity for knowing there are no 
 assignable limits ; he has afi'ections capable of indefinite 
 enlargement, refinement, and happiness. Any employ- 
 ment which keeps him down to the level of the beast of 
 burden, which allows him no time or means of developing 
 
AND AS A BLESSING. 
 
 7 
 
 his higher nature, is a curse. This has been and still is 
 too much the hard condition of the laborer. Worldly 
 greed desires to get the most labor for the least pay, to 
 get the largest results in the least time, and the laborer is 
 held as many hours and to as much work as can be wrung 
 from him. It is a much greater evil than weariness, 
 coarse garments, and simple fare. To the extent of its 
 influence it defeats the end for which man was created. 
 It prevents or hinders the development of his noblest 
 faculties, keeps the mind as well as the body servile, and 
 bars his entrance into the enjoyment of the richest posses- 
 sions of his inheritance. The time must come when the 
 cry of the most common laborer will be " bread," not for 
 the body only, but for the mind and the soul. 
 
 This great evil has already been somewhat mitigated by 
 shortening the hours of labor. One remedy for it will be 
 found in machinery. Mechanical power has already taken 
 off a strain from human muscles which they could not 
 bear. There is not sufficient physical power in the world 
 to do the present work of the world. The farmer, the 
 mechanic, the seamstress, the cook, the manufacturer, find 
 iron muscles and tireless fingers doing their work. Con- 
 veniences and quick and easy methods of every kind are 
 multiplied to lift the burdens of labor, and carry the laborer 
 to and fro from his work. The horse-car and the railway 
 are rendering inestimable service to him, a service which 
 he would soon appreciate if it were suspended. Instead 
 of swinging the scythe, and bending to the ground to reap 
 the harvest by the handful with the sickle, the farmer now 
 rides round his fields, and the grass and the grain fall down 
 before him as in worship. Instead of swinging " the weary 
 flinging-tree," as Burns calls the flail, from morning to 
 
8 
 
 LABOR AS A CURSE, 
 
 night, to thresh out a few bushels of wheat, and then win- 
 nowing the chaff from it with a fan, the threshing-machine 
 does the work of many men in an hour. 
 
 By means of these instruments of skill and power pro- 
 duction is indefinitely multiplied. The first efi'ect may 
 operate against the workman. It may throw him out of 
 his special employment, and before he has had time and 
 skill to adjust himself to new conditions, it may take the 
 bread from his mouth. Consequently we find that every 
 improvement in methods of work, every substitution of 
 material forces for human muscles, has been opposed. The 
 laborer has fought against the friend that has come to bear 
 his burdens, to give strength to his hands and swiftness to 
 his feet. It is a blind unconscious force that simply asks 
 to be guided, and the privilege of working for man with 
 tireless energy. The final result must be lighter labor and 
 fewer hours of work, more time for gaining knowledge and 
 cultivating the social, moral, and distinctly human faculties. 
 The application of natural forces to overcoming the dead 
 resistance of matter and moulding its stubborn substance 
 into forms adapted to human service, is one of the most 
 efficient instruments in working out man's redemption from 
 exhausting physical toil. The change will be slow, as all 
 great changes are. We may not see clearly how the good 
 in the fulness of its relief and power is to come. But it 
 surely will come. It has come in many incidental and 
 unnoticed ways which lift our burdens and minister to our 
 comfort and ease. If tlie methods of industry were forced 
 back from the modern plough to the spade or sharp stick, 
 from the power-loom to the weaver's shuttle, from the saw 
 and plane, the mighty hammer and rolling-mill propelled 
 by steam, to the old tools driven by human muscles, the 
 
AND AS A BLESSING. 
 
 9 
 
 most common laborer would begin to appreciate the ser- 
 vice of modern inventions. 
 
 But the greatest evil and the bitterest curse that rests 
 upon labor is the prevalent feeling that it is menial and 
 degrading. One of the greatest evils of slavery consisted 
 in the fact that it made useful labor disreputable. The 
 work and the workman were associated, and the social 
 position of the laborer gave character to his work. He 
 was a slave, therefore his employment was regarded as ser- 
 vile and debasing. This feeling has extended to physical 
 labor in every form. It has degraded the laborer in his 
 own eyes, and tended to make him servile in spirit. This 
 false estimate of labor, born of the love of self and the 
 world and intensified by it, has had a powerful influence 
 in leading men and women to escape from it. 
 
 Multitudes work like slaves all their lives ; they pinch 
 and screw and deny themselves comforts and the means of 
 culture, and let all their higher faculties remain unculti- 
 vated, to accumulate the means of living without labor. 
 They work to avoid work. They make slaves of themselves 
 to escape from service. How often do we hear the remark 
 about those who have been successful in business or fallen 
 heir to a large estate, " He has enough to support him 
 handsomely. It is not necessary for him to do another 
 stroke of work." Enviable position ! Nothing to do but 
 to take his ease, to eat and drink and be merry. Multi- 
 tudes are striving and hoping to become independent. But 
 it is a vain hope. No human being ever was or ever can 
 be independent. The richest and most powerful man in 
 the world is as dependent as the day laborer. Nay, more ; 
 he is dependent upon the laborer. The crowding into 
 trades and professions, and the desire to accumulate riches 
 
10 
 
 LABOR AS A CURSE, 
 
 rapidly are created and inflamed into a passion by the desire 
 to be raised above the necessity of manual labor, and to 
 command the luxuries and pleasures of life without physi- 
 cal exertion. Success in these eiForts is called good fortune, 
 rising in the world. This feeling prevails in church and 
 state, it enters into every household, and influences with 
 more or less power every heart, and is a curse in its in- 
 fluence upon every one who cherishes it. 
 
 Another evil which grows out of this is a depreciation 
 of the value of labor and a struggle to get its service for 
 the least compensation. False opinion says it is menial, it 
 is degrading, it is mere force, it is on a level with the 
 engine and the ox. Why should we not gain this power 
 just as cheap as possible, as we would the power of an 
 engine by economy in fuel? Because a man is not an engine 
 or an ox. Because there is something in him more precious 
 than brute force, something more vital to every national and 
 human interest than skill of hand or power of machine. In 
 this false view of labor the man is overlooked. The end for 
 which all things are created is disregarded. The wheat 
 is lost, and the chaff only is gathered. 
 
 How is this evil to be removed? By forcing larger 
 wages? By getting a larger market? By enticing to 
 larger consumption ? These means may help ; they may 
 be necessary as instruments, but they can never succeed 
 in removing the causes that render labor a curse. Wages 
 cannot be forced long beyond their real value. There is a 
 limit to human consumption and ability to purchase, and 
 that must limit production and compensation. There will 
 be fluctuations, but there are laws above human legislation 
 or control which will in the end settle the question. There 
 are principles higher than wages, more potent than the 
 
AND AS A BLESSING. 
 
 11 
 
 love of money, or ease, or power for selfish purposes ; 
 ^ more efi'ective than legislation, or combinations of any 
 kind. So great a work can only be accomplished by prin- 
 ciples that are organized in the constitution of the human 
 mind, and which must be gradual in effecting results. 
 
 How is it then to be done ? How can manual and pro- 
 ductive labor be elevated above menial service? It can 
 only be done by the worker. To the drudge every form 
 of labor is drudgery. A servile spirit makes the most 
 useful work servile. It can be done, and only done, by 
 putting higher motives and a deeper interest in the work 
 itself. If we only regard the wages and our work merely 
 as a means of gaining subsistence, we shall think mainly of 
 them. Our interest will not be in our work, but in our 
 pay. The less work for the same pay the better. This 
 motive leads to poor work, to as little as possible. The 
 work itself is regarded as a curse, to be avoided. Every 
 form of human labor is a drudgery, in which we take no 
 interest and find no pleasure. The work we are engaged 
 in may be uncongenial to our tastes, it may be naturally 
 repulsive, and we may be compelled, by force of circum- 
 stances, to remain in it. But there is no useful employ- 
 ment which may not become the means of waking interest 
 and calling our intellectual faculties into play. Every one 
 can strive to do his work well, and just in the degree that 
 he does that, his labor will cease to be servile. 
 
 He is seeking to obtain excellence, and that is a noble 
 motive, and ennobles every man and woman who cherishes 
 it. It is of no consequence what the outward work is. It 
 may be the most menial employment in the eyes of men. 
 If a man can find nothing to do but sweep the streets, if 
 he has a soul above the dust, he can say to himself, I will 
 
12 
 
 LABOR AS A CURSE, 
 
 handle my broom with as much skill, and make every spot 
 I touch as clean as possible. In the sight of Him who 
 looks only at our motives, and who has declared that " he 
 that is f^iithful in that which is least is faithful also in 
 much," he is doing a more noble work than the man who 
 writes a book, paints a picture, or rules a state, merely for his 
 own glory. If we are making a shoe or a coat, forging a tool, 
 constructing an engine, or building a ship, or selling goods, 
 let us do our best. Let us try to excel in it. Let us try 
 to do better work to-day than we did yesterday. This pur- 
 pose will keep the thoughts bright, the affections alive. It 
 will lead to advancement. 
 
 Many years ago, a man in one of our Eastern cities 
 rose from poverty to great wealth by wise commercial en- 
 terprises. One day he was talking with a man who was a 
 poor boy with himself, and who had remained so. At some 
 remark which roused the poor man's envy, he said, " You 
 need not take such airs upon yourself. I knew you when 
 you were only a drummer." He retorted, quick as a flash, 
 " Didn't I drum well? Didn't I drum well ?" There is 
 a profound principle in his answer. I say to every man 
 and woman, whatever your position, " Drum well ! drum 
 well !" Whatever position you occupy, whatever work is 
 given you, do it well. Do it according to the best of your 
 ability. It will ennoble you and give dignity to your work, 
 and it will yield you a more precious reward than your wages, 
 and it will not diminish them. 
 
 But there is a higher, a purer, a nobler and a more en- 
 nobling motive than the desire to excel in your vocation. 
 You may do that from a desire to excel others rather than to 
 excel in the product of your hands. You can do your work 
 from regard to the good of others. Whatever your employ- 
 
AND AS A BLESSING. 
 
 13 
 
 ment may be, however trivial it may seem, however weak 
 and poor and unskilled you may be, whatever your hand 
 finds to do, you can do it from a desire to be useful. As 
 this is the highest, or next to the highest, motive from 
 which men or angels can act, so it is the most universal in 
 its application. It comes within the reach of the poorest 
 as well as the richest, of the weakest as well as the strong- 
 est, of the least skilled as well as the most expert. It is a 
 living and constant motive. It is not limited to special 
 occasions or special work. It runs through the day, and 
 through the year ; it abides when you eat and rest as a 
 pure and elevating presence. It gives strength and skill. 
 
 Every one knows that we can do best what we love to 
 do. All the faculties are kept fresh and alive by the affec- 
 tion. Every one knows that the mind is peaceful and 
 happy when we are doing something with the purpose of 
 contributing to the comfort and well-being of others. On 
 special occasions we do work for others with this purpose. 
 Why should we not always do it ? You are making a shoe, 
 or a garment. Instead of doing it in a listless, servile 
 manner, thinking of your wages and wishing you could 
 get more for less work, why not lift your thought from 
 yourself, and let it pass on to the wearer ? It is to be pro- 
 tection and comfort to some one. Put protection and com- 
 fort into it. You know how pleasant it is to have a good 
 shoe, a well-fitting dress. Think of your own satisfaction 
 and try to give it to others. If you are sweeping a room, 
 or making a bed, or cooking a meal, think of the comfort 
 and pleasure of others while doing it, and do it in a man- 
 ner to give them as much pleasure as possible. This will 
 make you a sharer in their comfort. In the well-served 
 meal and the tidy room you will no longer be a drudge. 
 
14 
 
 LABOR AS A CURSE, 
 
 You put yourself on an equality with those you serve, per- 
 haps rise above them. 
 
 This working with noble purpose costs nothing ; it does 
 not diminish your wages ; it does not waste your strength ; 
 it does not impoverish you in any respect. It does not 
 lessen your chances of constant employment. On the con- 
 trary, it helps you merely as a laborer. It will increase 
 your chances of employment ; it will add to your strength 
 and skill, and consequently will increase your wages, and, 
 what is more valuable, it will make you happy in your 
 work. It is the curse of labor that men and women do 
 not find their happiness in it. They regard it almost 
 wholly as a means imposed by stern necessity, of gaining 
 happiness in spending the wages they earn, or in freeing 
 themselves from the necessity of useful employment; 
 whereas, if they would put love for otbers into it, they 
 would find their pleasure in it. Their work would be- 
 come the instrument of accomplishing the end they sought. 
 Every stitch of the needle, every stroke of the hammer, 
 every step taken, and every word spoken would be in its 
 measure a success. Would not that take the servility, the 
 drudgery, the feeling of inferiority out of labor ? It is 
 no longer labor ; it is sport, it is play. It is the means of 
 accomplishing our purposes. 
 
 When a man does his work from regard to the good of 
 others, according to the Divine standard, he rises to the 
 highest position. He becomes a philanthropist, a lover of 
 man ; he becomes the peer of the best men. He may use the 
 same tools and work in the same shop as the man who labors 
 only with his hands for bread, but his hammer and chisel 
 and plough are glorified with a new purpose; they are 
 wielded for the good of humanity. His work is still ser- 
 
AND AS A BLESSING. 
 
 15 
 
 vice, but not servile. It is honorable service because ren- 
 dered with honorable purpose. It is noble work because 
 it is the embodiment of noble motives, and the motive 
 ennobles the deed and the doer. 
 
 Every man who labors in this spirit is a public bene- 
 factor ; he looks to the common good and contributes to it. 
 He adds something to the commonwealth ; the people are 
 richer for his work. He has increased the means of human 
 happiness. He also is a gainer by it. He will receive a 
 reward for his day's work whose value cannot be estimated 
 in dollars and cents. He has exercised the highest facul- 
 ties of his nature ; he has become more of a man ; he has 
 enlarged his own capacities for happiness; he has been 
 happy in his work, and he is happy in the knowledge of 
 the good it will do. Every man who labors in this spirit 
 is doing works of charity every day. He is feeding the 
 hungry, clothing the naked, ministering to the sick, giving 
 freedom to the bound, and fulfilling the law of kindness. 
 
 It may be replied that every man and woman who labors 
 faithfully in any useful employment, is working for the 
 public good however selfish may be the motives. This is 
 true ; but every one fails of gaining the highest reward of 
 his labor who does not put the highest motives into it. 
 It is one of the saddest facts in the world that men and 
 women labor so hard and fail of receiving the greatest 
 benefit of their work because they bring into action only 
 the lower faculties of their natures ; they put no love to 
 God or man into it ; they exercise no moral faculty, and 
 they gain no moral and heavenly reward. 
 
 This high purpose lies within the reach of every one. 
 Multitudes of men and women may not be able to work 
 with much skill, they may, by force of necessity, be com- 
 
16 LABOR AS A CURSE AND BLESSING. 
 
 pelled to labor in employments that are rev^^^^^o^^^ 
 natural tastes, but they can put this love o ^od and man 
 into their work. It will not hinder their labor, it will not 
 ti st its natural rewards. No taskmaster, no pow. 
 of legislation can prevent them from working with th s 
 nobk heavenly purpose. The hewers of wood and drawers 
 0 water he iivites and Hittites of humanity can put love 
 
 ctas than gold c purchase, with ,«» » »»» 
 Tork to.n..rr.w. It will take tie cse ..t of -t ..1 
 I, ii . ble,>i»g to youraelves, and aeeordiog to lie 
 rite of tusffi-lJ. t. ,o„ f.»me., to en- 
 
 ployers, and to humanity. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 NEW CHURCH TIUCT AM PUBLICATION SOCIETY. 
 
 TWENTY-SKCONl) AND OUESTNUT StiIECTS. 
 
 HSW TOM: E. I. SWISNEY, So. 20 COOPKR TOIOS. 
 BOSTOS: «SSiOH)S«TS CHmCI Um. 169 TEMOH STRffl. 
 
 Printed by J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelplua. 
 
Eleventh Series, No. 
 
 THE CONFLICT BETWEEN LABOR AND CAP- 
 ITAL. ITS CAUSE AND REMEDY, 
 
 BY KEY. CHAUNCEY GILES. 
 
 The question we propose to consider this evening is ex- 
 citing deep interest at the present time, but no more than 
 its importance demands. It is one of the hopeful signs of 
 the times that these subjects of vital interest to human 
 happiness are constantly coming up for a hearing, are en- 
 gaging the attention of the wisest men, and stirring the 
 minds of all classes of people. The wide prevalence of 
 this movement shows that a new life is beating in the heart 
 of humanity, operating upon their faculties like the warm 
 breath of spring upon the frozen ground and the dormant 
 germs of the plant. It will make a great stir, it will break 
 up many frozen and dead forms, it will produce great and 
 in some cases, it may be, destructive changes, but it an- 
 nounces the blossoming of new hopes, and the coming of 
 new harvests for the supply of human wants and the means 
 of greater happiness. There is great need of wisdom to guide 
 the new forces coming into action. Every man is under 
 the most solemn obligations to do his part in forming a 
 correct public opinion and giving wise direction to popular 
 will. It is with the purpose of contributing my mite to 
 this work that I have undertaken these lectures. 
 
 Thf: only solution for the problems of labor, of want, 
 
2 
 
 THE CONFLICT BETWEEN 
 
 of abundance, of suffering, and sorrow can only be found 
 by regarding them from a moral and spiritual point of 
 view. They must be seen and examined in a light that 
 is not of themselves. The true relations of labor and 
 capital can never be discovered by human selfishness. 
 They must be viewed from a higher purpose than wages 
 or the accumulation of wealth. They must be regarded 
 from their bearing upon the purposes for which man was 
 created. It is from this point of view I propose to con- 
 sider the subject before us. 
 
 Capital and labor are essential to each other. Their in- 
 terests are so bound together that they cannot be separated. 
 In civilized and enlighted communities they are mutually 
 dependent. If there is any difference, capital is more de- 
 pendent upon labor than labor upon capital. Life can be 
 sustained without capital. Animals, with a few exceptions, 
 have no property, and take no anxious thought for the 
 morrow, and our Lord commends them to our notice as 
 examples worthy of imitation. " Behold the fowls of the 
 air," He says, " for they sow not, neither do they reap nor 
 gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feedeth them." 
 The savage lives without capital. Indeed, the great mass 
 of human beings live by their labor from day to day, from 
 hand to mouth. But no man can live upon his wealth. 
 He cannot eat his gold and silver ; he cannot clothe himself 
 with deeds and certificates of stock. Capital can do noth- 
 ing without labor, and its only value consists in its power 
 to purchase labor or its results. It is itself the product 
 of labor. It has no occasion, therefore, to assume an im- 
 portance that docs not belong to it. Absolutely dependent, 
 however, as it is upon labor for its value, it is an essential 
 factor in human progress. 
 
LABOR AND CAPITAL. 
 
 3 
 
 The moment man begins to rise from a savage and com- 
 paratively independent to a civilized and dependent one, 
 capital becomes necessary. Men come into more intimate 
 relations with one another. Instead of each one doing 
 everything, men begin to devote themselves to special 
 employments, and to depend upon others to provide many 
 things for them while they engage in some special occupa- 
 tion. In this way labor becomes diversified. One man 
 works in iron, another in wood ; one manufactures cloth, 
 another makes it into garments ; some raise food to feed 
 those who build houses and manufacture implements of 
 husbandry. This necessitates a system of exchanges ; and 
 to facilitate exchanges roads must be made, and men must 
 be employed to make them. As population increases and 
 necessities multiply, the business of exchange becomes en- 
 larged, until we have immense manufactories, railroads 
 girding the earth with iron bands, steamships ploughing 
 every sea, and a multitude of men who cannot raise bread 
 or make a garment, or do anything directly for the supply 
 of their own wants. 
 
 Now we can see how we become more dependent upon 
 others as our wants are multiplied and civilization ad- 
 vances. Each one works in his special employment, does 
 better work, because he can devote his whole thought and 
 time to a form of use for which he is specially fitted, and 
 contributes more largely to the public good. While he is 
 working for others, all others are working for him. Every 
 member of the community is working for the whole body, 
 and the whole body, for every member. This is the law 
 of perfect Kfe, a law which rules everywhere in the mate- 
 rial body. Every man who is engaged in any employment 
 useful to body or mind is a philanthropist, a public bene- 
 
4 
 
 THE CONFLICT BETWEEN 
 
 factor, whether he raises corn on the prairie, cotton in 
 Texas or India, mines coal in the chambers of the earth, 
 or feeds it to engines in the hold of a steamship. If self- 
 ishness did not pervert and blast human motives, all men 
 and women would be fulfilling the law of charity while 
 engaged in their daily employments. 
 
 To carry on this vast system of exchanges, to place the 
 forest and the farm, the factory and the mine side by side, 
 and deliver the products of all climes at every door, re- 
 quires immense capital. One man cannot work his farm 
 or factory, and build a railroad or a line of steamships. 
 As rain-drops acting singly cannot drive a mill or supply 
 steam for an engine, but collected in a vast reservoir, be- 
 come the resistless power of Niagara, or the force which 
 drives the engine and steamship like mighty shuttles from 
 mountain to sea-coast and from shore to shore, so a few 
 dollars in a multitude of pockets are powerless to provide 
 the means for these vast operations, but combined they 
 move the world. 
 
 Capital is a friend to labor and essential to its economical 
 exercise and just reward. It can be, and often is, a terrible 
 enemy, when employed for selfish purposes alone ; but the 
 great mass of it is more friendly to human happiness than 
 is generally supposed. It cannot be employed with- 
 out in some way, either directly or indirectly, helping 
 the laborer. We think of the evils we suffer, but allow 
 the good we enjoy to pass unnoticed. We think of the 
 evils that larger means would relieve and the comforts they 
 would provide, but overlook the blessings we enjoy that 
 would have been impossible without large accumulations of 
 capital It is the part of wisdom to form a just estimate 
 of the good we receive as well as the evils we suffer. 
 
LABOR AND CAPITAL. 
 
 5 
 
 It is a common saying at the present time, that the rich 
 are growing richer and the poor poorer ; but when all man's 
 possessions are taken into the account there are good reasons 
 for doubting this assertion. It is true that the rich are 
 growing richer. It is also true that the condition of the 
 laborer is constantly improving. The common laborer has 
 conveniences and comforts which princes could not command 
 a century ago. He is better clothed, has a greater variety 
 and abundance of food, lives in a more comfortable dwell- 
 ing, and has many conveniences for the conduct of domestic 
 affairs and the prosecution of labor than money could pur- 
 chase but a few years ago. An emperor could not travel 
 with the ease, the comfort, and the swiftness that the common 
 laborer can to-day. He may think that he stands alone, 
 with no one to help. But in truth he has an immense 
 retinue of servants constantly waiting upon him, ready and 
 anxious to do his bidding. It requires a vast army of men 
 and an immense outlay of capital to provide a common 
 dinner, such as every man and woman, with few exceptions, 
 
 ^ has enjoyed to-day. 
 
 Think of the vast combination of means and men and 
 forces necessary to provide even a frugal meal. The 
 Chinaman raises your tea, the Brazilian your coffee, the 
 East Indian your spices, the Cuban your sugar, the farmer 
 
 r upon the Western prairies your bread and possibly your 
 
 beef, the gardener your vegetables, the dairyman your 
 butter and milk, the miner has dug from the hills the coal 
 with which your food was cooked and your house was 
 warmed, the cabinet-maker has provided you with chairs 
 and tables, the cutler with knives and forks, the potter with 
 dishes, the Irishman has made your table-cloth, the butcher 
 has dressed your meat, the miller your flour. 
 
6 
 
 THE COXFLICT BETWEEN 
 
 But these various articles of food, and the means of 
 preparing and serving it, were produced at immense dis- 
 tances from you and from one another. Oceans had to be 
 traversed, hills levelled, valleys filled, and mountains tun- 
 nelled, ships must be built, railways constructed, and a 
 vast army of men instructed and employed in every me- 
 chanical art before the materials for your dinner could be 
 prepared and served. There must also be men to collect 
 these materials, to buy and sell and distribute them. 
 Every one stands in his own place and does his own work, 
 and receives his wages. But he is none the less working 
 for you, and serving you as truly and effectively as he 
 would be if he were in your special employment and re- 
 ceived his wages from your hand. In the light of these 
 facts, which every one must acknowledge, we may be able 
 to see more clearly the truth of what I said in my last 
 lecture ; and it is a truth which must help all who re- 
 ceive it, that every man and woman who does useful 
 work is a public benefactor, and the thought of it and the 
 purpose of it will ennoble the labor and the laborer. We 
 are all bound together by common ties. The rich and the 
 poor, the learned and the ignorant, the strong and the 
 weak, are woven together in one social and civil web. 
 Harm to one is harm to all ; help to one is help to all. 
 
 You see what a vast army of servants it requires to 
 provide your dinner. Do you not see that it demands a 
 corresponding amount of capital to provide and keep this 
 complicated machinery in motion ? And do you not see 
 that every man, woman, and child is enjoying the benefit 
 of it ? How could we get our coal, our meat, our flour, 
 our tea and coffee, sugar and rice ? The laborer cannot 
 build ships and sail them and support himself while doing 
 
LABOR AND CAPITAL. 
 
 7 
 
 it. The farmer cannot leave his farm and take his produce 
 to the market. The miner cannot mine and transport his 
 coah The farmer in Kansas is burning corn to-day to cook 
 his food and warm his dwelling, and the miner may be 
 hungry for the bread which the corn would supply, be- 
 cause they cannot exchange the fruits of their labor. Every 
 acre of land, every forest and mine has been increased in 
 value by railways and steamboats, and the comforts of life 
 and the means of social and intellectual culture have been 
 carried to the most inaccessible places. 
 
 But the benefits of capital are not limited to supplying 
 present wants and comforts. It opens new avenues for 
 labor. It diversifies it and gives a wider field to every one 
 to do the kind of work for which he is best fitted by natural 
 taste and genius. The number of employments created 
 by railways, steamships, telegraphs, and manufactories by 
 machinery can hardly be estimated. Capital is also largely 
 invested in supplying the means of intellectual and spiritual 
 culture. Books are multiplied at constantly diminishing 
 prices, and the best thought of the world, by means of our 
 great publishing houses, is made accessible to the humblest 
 workman. There is no better example of the benefits the 
 common laborer derives from capital than the daily news- 
 paper. For one or two cents the history of the world for 
 twenty-four hours is brought to every door. The laborer, 
 while riding to or from his work in a comfortable car, can 
 visit all parts of the known world and get a truer idea of 
 the events of the day than he could if he were bodily 
 present. A battle in China or Africa, an earthquake in 
 Spain, a dynamite explosion in London, a debate in Con- 
 gress, the movements of men in public and private life for 
 the suppression of vice, for enlightening the ignorant, 
 
THE CONFLICT BETWEEN 
 
 helping the needy, and improving the people generally, 
 are spread before him in a small compass, and bring him 
 into contact and on equality in regard to the world's his- 
 tory, with kings and queens, with saints and sages, and 
 people in every condition in life. Do you ever think, 
 while reading the morning paper, how many men have 
 been running on your errands, collecting intelligence for 
 you from alt parts of the earth, and putting it into a form 
 convenient for your use ? It required the investment of 
 millions of money and the employment of millions of men 
 ] to produce that paper and leave it at your door. And 
 J what did all this service cost you ? Two cents. 
 
 These are examples of the benefits which every one de- 
 / rives from capital, benefits which could not be obtained 
 I without vast expenditure of money ; benefits which come 
 \ to us without our care and lay their blessings at our feet, 
 j Capital cannot be invested in any useful production without 
 1 blessing a multitude of people. It sets the machinery of 
 i life in motion, it multiplies employments; it places the 
 i product of all climes at every door, it draws the people of 
 ■ all nations together ; brings mind in contact with mind, 
 and gives to every man and woman a large and valuable 
 share of the product. These are facts which it would be 
 well for every one, however poor he may be, to consider. 
 
 If capital is such a blessing to labor ; if it can only be 
 brought into use by labor, and derives all its value from it, 
 how can there be any conflict between them ? There could 
 be none if both the capitalist and laborer acted from 
 humane and Christian principles. But they do not. 
 They are governed by inhuman and unchristian principles. 
 Each party seeks to get the largest returns for the least 
 service. Capital desires larger profits, labor higher wages. 
 
 \ 
 
LABOR AND CAPITAL. 
 
 9 
 
 The interests of the capitalist and the laborer come into 
 direct collision. In this warfare capital has great advan- i 
 tages, and has been prompt to take them. It has demanded i 
 and taken the lion's share of the profits. It has despised 
 the servant that enriched it. It has regarded the laborer 
 as a menial, a slave, whose rights and happiness it was not 
 bound to respect. It influences legislators to enact laws 
 in its favor, subsidizes governments, and wields its power 
 for its own advantage. Capital has been a lord and labor ' 
 a servant. While the servant remained docile and obedi- 
 ent, content with such compensation as its lord chose to 
 give, there was no conflict. But labor is rising from a 
 servile, submissive, and hopeless condition. It has acquired 
 strength and intelligence ; has gained the idea that it has 
 rights that ought to be respected, and begins to assert and 
 combine to support them. 
 
 Each party in this warfare regards the subject from its 
 own selfish interest. The capitalist supposes that gain to 
 labor is loss to him, and that he must look to his own i 
 interests first ; that the cheaper the labor the larger his 
 gains. Consequently it is for his interest to keep the price 
 as low as possible. On the contrary, the laborer thinks 
 that he loses what the capitalist gains, and consequently 
 that it is for his interest to get as large wages as possible. 
 From these opposite points of view their interests appear 
 to be directly hostile. What one party gains the other 
 loses ; hence the conflict. Both are acting from selfish 
 motives, and consequently must be wrong. Both parties 
 see only half of the truth, and, mistaking that for the 
 whole of it, they fall into a mistake ruinous to both. Each 
 one stands on his own ground, and regards the subject 
 wholly from his point of view and in the misleading light 
 
10 
 
 THE CONFLICT BETWEEN 
 
 of his own selfishness. Passion inflames the mind and 
 blinds the understanding; and when passion is aroused 
 men will sacrifice their own interests to injure others, and 
 both will sufi'er loss. They will wage continual warfare 
 against each other ; they will resort to all devices, and 
 take advantage of every necessity to win a victory. Cap- 
 ital tries to starve the laborer into submission, like a be- 
 leaguered city ; and hunger and want are most powerful 
 weapons. Labor sullenly resists, and tries to destroy the 
 value of capital by rendering it unproductive. If neces- 
 sity or interest compels a truce, it is a sullen one, and 
 maintained with the purpose of renewing hostilities as 
 soon as there is any prospect of success. Thus laborers 
 and the capitalists confront each other like two armed 
 hosts, ready at any time to renew the conflict. It will be 
 renewed, without doubt, and continued with varying suc- 
 cess until both parties discover that they are mistaken, 
 that their interests are mutual, and can only be secured to 
 the fullest extent by co-operation and giving to each the 
 reward it deserves. The capitalist and the laborer must 
 clasp hands across the bottomless pit into which so much 
 wealth and work have been cast. 
 
 How this reconciliation is to be efi"ected is a question 
 that is occupying the minds of many wise and good men 
 on both sides at the present time. Wise and impartial 
 leoislation will no doubt be an important agent in re- 
 straining blind passion and protecting all classes from 
 insatiable greed ; and it is the duty of every man to use 
 his best endeavors to secure such legislation both in State 
 and national governments. Organizations of laborers for 
 protecting their own rights and securing a better re- 
 ward for their labor, will have a great influence. That 
 
LABOR AND CAPITAL. 
 
 11 
 
 influence will continue to increase as their temper be- 
 comes more mild and firm, and their demands are based 
 on justice and humanity. Violence and threats will effect 
 no good. Dynamite, whether in the form of explosives 
 or the more destructive force of fierce and reckless passion, 
 will heal no wounds nor subdue any hostile feeling. Arbi- 
 tration is doubtless the wisest and most practicable means 
 now available to bring about amicable relations between 
 these hostile parties and secure justice to both. Giving the 
 laborer a share in the profits of the business has worked 
 well in some cases, but it is attended with great practical 
 difficulties which require more wisdom, self-control, and 
 genuine regard for the common interests of both parties 
 than often can be found. Many devices may have a par- 
 tial and temporary efi'ect. But no permanent progress can 
 be made in settling this conflict without restraining and 
 finally removing its cause. 
 
 Its real central cause is an inordinate love of self -and 
 the world, and that cause will continue to operate as long 
 as it exists. It may be restrained and moderated, but it 
 will assert itself when occasion off'ers. Every wise man 
 must, therefore, seek to remove the cause, and as far as he 
 can do it he will control effects. Purify the fountain , 
 and you make the whole stream pure and wholesome. 
 
 There is a principle of universal influence that must un- 
 derlie and guide every successful effort to bring these two 
 great factors of human good which now confront each other 
 with hostile purpose, into harmony. It is no invention or 
 discovery of mine. It embodies a higher than human wis- 
 dom. It is not difficult to understand or apply. The 
 child can comprehend it and act according to it. It is 
 universal in its application, and wholly useful in its effects. 
 
12 
 
 THE CONFLICT BETWEEN 
 
 It will lighten the burdens of labor and increase its re- 
 wards. It will give security to capital and make it more 
 productive. It is simply the Golden Rule, embodied in 
 these words : Therefore all things whatsoever ye would 
 that men should do to yoii^ do ye even so to them : for this 
 is the law and the prophets ^ 
 
 Before proceeding to apply this principle to the case in 
 hand, let me call your special attention to it. It is a very 
 remarkable law of human life which seems to have been 
 generally overlooked by statesmen, philosophers, and relig- 
 ious teachers. This rule embodies the whole of religion ; 
 it comprises all the precepts, commandments, and means of 
 the future triumphs of good over evil, of truth over error, 
 and the peace and happiness of men, foretold in the glorious 
 visions of the prophets. Mark the words. It does not 
 merely say that it is a wise rule; that it accords with the 
 principles of the Divine order revealed in the law and the 
 prophets. It embodies them all : " It is the law and the 
 prophets." It comprises love to God. It says we should 
 regard Him as we desire to have Him regard us ; that we 
 should do to Him as we wish to have Him do to us. If we 
 desire to have Him love us v^ith all His heart, with all 
 His soul, with all His mind, and with all His strength, we 
 must love Him in the same manner. If we desire to have 
 our neighbor love us as he loves himself, we must love him 
 as we love ourself. Here, then, is the universal and Di- 
 vine law of human service and fellowship. It is not a pre- 
 cept of human wisdom ; it has its origin in the Divine 
 nature, and its embodiment in human nature. Now let us 
 apply it to the conflict between labor and capital. 
 
 You are a capitalist. Your money is invested in manu- 
 factures, in land, in mines, in merchandise, railways, and 
 
LABOR AND CAPITAL. 
 
 13 
 
 ships, or you loan it to others on interest. You employ, 
 directly or indirectly, men to use your capital. You can- 
 not come to a just conclusion concerning your rights and 
 duties and privileges by looking wholly to your own gains. 
 The glitter of the silver and the gold will exercise so potent 
 a spell over your minds that it will blind you to everything 
 else! You can see no interest but your own. The laborer 
 is not known or regarded as a man who has any interests 
 you are bound to regard. You see him only as your slave, 
 your tool, a means of adding to your wealth. In this 
 light he is a friend so far as he serves you, an enemy so 
 far as he does not. But change your point of view. Put 
 yourself in his place ; put him in your place. How would 
 you like to have him treat you if you were in his place ? 
 Perhaps you have been there. In all probability you have, 
 for the capitalist to-day was the laborer yesterday, and the 
 laborer to-day will be the employer to-morrow. You know 
 from lively and painful experience how you would like to 
 be treated. Would you like to be regarded as a mere tool ? 
 as a means of enriching another ? Would you like to have 
 your wages kept down to the bare necessities of life? 
 Would you like to be regarded with indifference and 
 treated with brutality? Would you like to have your 
 blood, your strength, your soul coined into dollars for the 
 benefit of another ? These questions are easy to answer. 
 Every one knows that he would rejoice to be treated kindly, 
 to have his interests regarded, his rights recognized and 
 protected. Every one knows that such regard awakens a 
 response in his own heart. Kindness begets kindness; 
 respect awakens respect. Put yourself in his place. Im- 
 agine that you are dealing with yourself, and you will have 
 no difficulty in deciding whether you should give the screw 
 
u 
 
 THE COXFLICT BETWEEN 
 
 another turn, that you ma}^ wring a penny more from the 
 muscles of the worker, or rekix its pressure, and, if possi- 
 ble, add something to his wages, and give him respect for 
 his service. Do to him as you would have him do to you 
 in changed conditions. 
 
 You are a laborer. You receive a certain sum for a 
 day's work. Put yourself in the place of your employer. 
 How would you like to have the men you employed work 
 for 3^ou ? Would you think it right that they should re- 
 gard you as their enemy ? Would you think it honest in 
 them to slight their work, to do as little and to get as much 
 as possible ? If you had a large contract which must be 
 completed at a fixed time or you would suffer great loss, 
 would you like to have your workmen take advantage of 
 your necessity to compel an increase of their wages ? 
 Would you think it right and wise in them to interfere 
 with you in the management of j^our business ? To dic- 
 tate whom you should employ, and on what terms you 
 should employ them ? Would you not rather have them 
 do honest work in a kind and good spirit ? Would you 
 not be much more disposed to look to their interests, to 
 lighten their labor, to increase their wages when you could 
 afford to do so, and look after the welfare of their families, 
 when you found that they regarded yours ? I know that 
 it would be so. It is true that men are selfish, and that 
 some men are so mean and contracted in spirit that they 
 cannot see any interest but their own, whose hearts, not 
 made of flesh but of silver and gold, are so hard that 
 they are not touched by any human feeling, and care not 
 how much others suffer if they can make a cent by it. 
 But they are the exception, not the rule. We are influ- 
 enced by the regard and devotion of others to our interests. 
 
LABOR AND CAPITAL. 
 
 15 
 
 The laborer who knows that his employer feels kindly to- 
 wards him, desires to treat him justly and to regard his 
 good, will do better work and more of it, and will be dis- 
 posed to look to his employer's interests as well as his own. 
 
 I am well aware that, many will think this Divine and 
 humane law of doing to others as we would have them do 
 to us, is impracticable in this selfish and worldly age. If 
 both parties would be governed by it, every one can see 
 how happy would be the results. But, it will be said, they 
 will not. The laborer will not work unless compelled by 
 want. He will take advantage of every necessity. As 
 soon as he gains a little independence of his employer he 
 becomes proud, arrogant, and hostile. The employer will 
 seize upon every means to keep the workman dependent 
 upon him, and to make as much out of him as possible. 
 Every inch of ground which labor yields capital will occupy 
 and intrench itself in it, and from its vantage bring the 
 laborer into greater dependence and more abject submission. 
 But this is a mistake. The history of the world testifies 
 that when the minds of men are not embittered by intense • 
 hostility and their feelings outraged by cruel wrongs, they 
 are ready to listen to calm, disinterested, and judicious 
 counsel. A man who employed a large number of laborers 
 in mining coal told me that he had never known an in- 
 stance to fail of a calm and candid response when he had 
 appealed to honorable motives, as a man to man, both of 
 whom acknowledged a common humanity. There is a 
 recent and most notable instance in this city of the happy 
 elFect of calm, disinterested, and judicious counsel in set- 
 tling difiiculties between employers and workmen that 
 were disastrous to both. w 
 
 When the mind is inflamed by passion men will not 
 
16 CONFLICT OF LABOR AND CAPITAL, 
 
 listen to reason. They become blind to their own inter- 
 ests and regardless of the interests of others. Difficulties 
 are never settled while passion rages. They are never 
 settled by conflict. One party may be subdued by power; 
 but the sense of wrong will remain ; the fire of passion 
 will slumber ready to break out again on the first occa- 
 sion. But let the laborer or the capitalist feel assured 
 tha the other party has no wish to take any advantage, 
 that there is a sincere desire and determination on both 
 sides to be just and pay due regard to their common in- 
 terests, and all *he conflict between them would cease, as 
 the ^ '^ . he ocean sink to calm when the winds 
 
 are at rest. ^borer and the capitalist have a mutual 
 
 and comr ^ arest. Neither can permanently prosper 
 without ^osperity of the other. They are parts of 
 
 one b abor is the arm, capital is the blood. De- 
 
 vit^ ^'^r., -e the blood, and the arm loses its power. 
 D'-^ /■ .rm, and the blood is useless. Let each care 
 
 uer, and both are benefited. Let each take the 
 ^^ '^ Je as a guide, and all cause of hostility will be 
 
 all conflict will cease, and they will go hand in 
 ^ 0 do their work and reap their just reward. 
 
 P H 1 I. A D E T. P H I A : 
 KEW CHURCH TRACT AND PUHLICATrON SOCIETY, 
 
 Tvventy-Skconi) and OirKSTNUT Strrkts. 
 NEW YORK: E. H. SWINNBY, No. 20 COOPER UNION. 
 BOSTON; MASSACHUSETTS NEW CHURCH UNION, 169 TREMONT STREET. 
 
 Priiilcd b.v .1. U. T.iPFiNCOTT A Co., riiiladelpliia. 
 
Eleventli Series. No. 3. 
 
 MECHANICAL EMPLOYMENTS AS MEANS OF 
 HUMAN CULTURE, 
 
 BY KEY. CHAUI^CEY GILES. 
 
 Man is a being of various capacities and large dimen- 
 sions. He was created in the image and after the like- 
 ness of God whom he has been taught to call his Father, 
 and of whose nature he was made to partake. He is en- 
 dowed with faculties capable of taking the impress of the 
 Divine nature, of receiving and reciprocating the Divine 
 love, of being illuminated with the Divine wisdom, of 
 becoming a co-worker with his Heavenly Father, and the 
 heir of His infinite riches. He is created for a noble 
 destiny, endowed with capacities to fill it, and the means 
 of gaining it. Such is the high calling and grand possi- 
 bilities of every human being, however obscure his natural 
 birth or mean and scanty his earthly condition. President 
 Garfield said he always felt like taking off" his hat to a 
 boy in recognition of the grand possibilities of knowledge, 
 power, and heroism that lay sleeping within him. Every 
 one would look with some degree of curiosity and respect 
 upon the heir of an earthly kingdom, but every boy and 
 girl we meet, however humble their natural parentage, are 
 heirs to an inheritance more precious in value and vaster 
 in extent than all worlds,~an inheritance they can only 
 forfeit by declining to accept it. Here, in the greatness of 
 
2 MECHANICAL EMPLOYMENTS AS 
 
 human possibility, I desire to take my staud in estimating 
 the value of mechanical employments as a means of human 
 culture. 
 
 You will observe that I say human culture. I mean 
 more than physical, or intellectual, or artistic, or even 
 moral and spiritual culture. Human comprises them all, 
 and there can be no complete human culture which does 
 not bring all man's faculties into play. The value of every 
 employment and every possession can only be determined 
 by the degree in which it contributes to this end. All 
 man's faculties are given to him as germs, as possibilities, 
 to be developed by exercise. This is the Divine method 
 of creating, examples of which we see everywhere around 
 us. The Lord does not create a tree of full stature, loaded 
 with fruit, or a world ready for human habitation in a 
 moment, by an almighty fiat. He employs means and 
 brings into play a great variety of forces, and step by step 
 advances toward the end He seeks. As the germs of every 
 human faculty can only be developed by action, the Lord 
 has placed man in conditions, supplied him with means, 
 and charmed him with motives to call his faculties into 
 play, and find his happiness in their activity. And He 
 has so constituted them that they gain enlargement and 
 strength and perfection by action. The grandeur of our 
 nature consists in the fact that there is no assignable limit 
 to intellectual and spiritual attainment beyond which we 
 \ cannot pass. The mind is not filled, like a material vessel, by 
 V what we put into it. On the contrary, it becomes enlarged 
 by it. The more we know the greater our capacity for 
 knowledge, and the more rapidly we can learn. The more 
 we love the more we are capable of loving and the keener 
 and more exquisite the joy of it. Every human fiiculty 
 
MEANS OF HUMAN CULTURE. 
 
 3 
 
 is developed by use and in use. This is the meaning of 
 labor, of society, of the state. This is the reason why the 
 Lord has not supplied us with all the means necessary 
 to the support of a merely animal existence ready for our 
 use. That would take away all incentives to action. It 
 is better to be hungry at times than to be always full fed. 
 It is better to be ignorant than to have knowledge poured 
 into us without any effort of our own. That which costs 
 us no labor, and whose possession calls no faculty into play, 
 is of no value. If we were entombed in sepulchres of gold 
 and silver, studded with the most precious gems, our treas- 
 ures would give us no pleasure. The true value of every 
 possession and condition in life is determined by its power 
 to call our faculties into exercise in the most varied and 
 orderly manner. From this point of view, and measured 
 by this standard, let us see what we can find in mechanical 
 employments that is favorable to the attainment of the 
 highest end of our being. 
 
 The Heavenly Father gives His children their food, 
 clothing, habitation, and the means of supplying all their 
 wants and developing all their faculties in crude sub- 
 stances. He gives the materials, and some strength and 
 skill to use them, that by their use he may gain more 
 strength of body and mind, more skill of hand and brain, 
 and by skill of hand and thought the more interior and 
 precious qualities of his nature may be called into con- 
 scious life and embodied in deed. The elements of his 
 bread and meat and fruits of every kind are in the ground 
 and atmosphere; but man must plough his ground, and sow 
 his seed, and plant his trees, and cultivate his fields before 
 he can gather his harvests. The worm will spin his silk, 
 the earth will send forth from her generous bosom his 
 
4 
 
 MECHANICAL EMPLOYMENTS AS 
 
 cotton, sheep will grow his wool, but these raw materials 
 require many changes before they become garments to clothe 
 the body. The iron and silver and gold, mixed with many 
 substances that render them useless, lie in crude forms in 
 the chambers of the hills. They must be subjected to 
 many processes and pass through many changes before 
 they can be fitted for human use. It is the business of 
 the mechanic to make these changes. 
 
 These things are familiar to all ; and because they are 
 so familiar we are apt to forget or to overlook the love and 
 wisdom of our Heavenly Father in giving us the necessa- 
 ries of life in such crude forms. Multitudes mistake His 
 purpose, and accuse Him of neglecting His children, be- 
 cause He suffers any one of them to go naked and hungry. 
 But He desires to make us co-workers with Him ; He 
 desires to have us become something more than animals 
 to be fed. He has clothed the grass of the field, the birds 
 of the air, and the animal that possesses no faculties 
 capable of development. But man is endowed with a 
 nobler nature. He possesses faculties capable of unlimited 
 attainment in power to know, to love, and to enjoy. He 
 has placed him in the best conditions to call these higher 
 faculties into play. Man's food, protection, comfort, and 
 happiness demand the exercise of thought, of prudence, of 
 skill and providence, of co-operation with his fellow-man 
 and regard for his interests. The Lord is not content that 
 man should live a merely animal existence, and therefore 
 He has provided him with the means and placed him in 
 conditions to call forth love to Him and to his fellow- 
 man. Every human being has something to do in carry- 
 ing this purpose into effect, both for himself and in as- 
 sisting others. The Lord gives to every human being 
 
MEANS OF HUMAN CULTURE. 
 
 5 
 
 one or five or ten pounds of capacity, and rewards him 
 according to the measure of his use. 
 
 The mechanic stands between the crude substances of 
 nature and their use. They must pass through his heart 
 and through his brain and through his hands in their 
 transition to forms adapted to human use. He must put 
 his heart into them, and they must take on the forms of 
 his thought, and become the expression of his love, of his 
 skill, of his knowledge, and of his power, of his fidelity, 
 and of all human qualities. Can you conceive of any 
 other employment better calculated to call all his faculties, 
 the highest as well as the lowest, into action ? Let me 
 help you, if I can, to see how it tends to efi'ect this result, 
 and co-operates with the Divine purpose in man's creation. 
 
 I mention first one of the noblest human qualities and 
 most essential to human happiness, and one which you 
 will be surprised to learn that it has anything to do with 
 our employments. That element of human character is 
 obedience. It is an old-fashioned virtue which is only 
 kept alive by necessity. We are all free ; we are all seek- 
 ing to be independent. But we are seeking the impossible. 
 There is only one, and can be only one independent being 
 in the universe, and even He, though possessing infinite 
 power, is dependent on the will of man for the good He 
 can bestow upon him. Freedom, also, of which we so 
 much boast, and so eagerly desire, can only be gained by 
 obedience. But see how his employment teaches, and even 
 compels, obedience in the mechanic. 
 
 The substances he deals with though they lie dead and 
 passive under his hand, possess qualities and hold relations 
 to other substances which he must respect. They are 
 under the dominion of laws which he cannot transcend, 
 
6 
 
 MECHANICAL EMPLOYMENTS AS 
 
 which he must obey, or he can do nothing with them. 
 He is a worker in iron. The passive metal says to him, 
 Mould me into any form your taste or fancy may devise or 
 your need require ; put me to any use you please. Heat 
 me, melt me, roll me, pound me, marry me to any other 
 substance ; I am at your service. I will take on the form 
 of your thought, I will do your pleasure ; but only on one 
 condition. You must respect my nature ; you must obey 
 the laws embodied in me. 
 
 The mechanic soon discovers that this demand must be 
 respected. He begins at once to learn what those laws are. 
 He finds the metal in crude ore combined with substances 
 which debase its qualities and render it useless. He seeks 
 to purge it of its dross. He finds it too soft for his 
 use in cutting wood and stone, and by long study and ex- 
 periment he discovers that it loves carbon, and he brings 
 them together, and they embrace each other in indissoluble 
 union, and combined off'er their services to quarry his stone 
 and shape it into pillars and arches to support his structures, 
 or leaves and flowers to adorn them. It will fell his forests, 
 delve and plough for him, spin and weave for him ; become 
 a path for his feet and give them wings ; an instrument 
 of power to carry his burdens, and with tireless hands do 
 his work. But it will not lift a finger nor take a step in 
 his service contrary to the laws of its own nature, and he 
 must obey them. 
 
 We boast much of our control over elemental forces, of 
 making the winds and waves, light and heat and electricity, 
 obey and serve us. They will serve us, but only on condi- 
 tion that we obey them. And this is an immutable condi- 
 tion. The winds will not change their direction to accom- 
 modate the sailor on the ocean. No prayers, no skill, no 
 
MEANS OF HUMAN CULTURE. 7 
 
 power of man can change them. But when he sets his 
 sails, he can so trim them that the wind will fill them, and 
 send him north, south, east, or west, as he desires, only he 
 cannot sail against them. So in everything. Iron will 
 float like cork on water. The stream will grind his corn 
 and saw his logs and plane his boards, if he will place him- 
 self in true and amicable relations with it, but on no other 
 conditions. The lightning will carry his messages of love 
 or hate, of life or death, but only in its own path and in 
 its own language. It must also be in the path it best ^ 
 loves. Every force which men call natural, but which I ^ 
 call Divine, will work for man, if he will obey it. So the 
 mechanic cannot take a step in gaining his purpose but in 
 obedience to law. He knows he cannot ; and, therefore, he 
 sets himself diligently and faithfully to learn the laws, the 
 likes and dislikes, the strength and weakness of the sub- 
 stances he deals with, and he rejoices when he discovers 
 them. Is there any employment so well fitted to teach 
 this virtue and to initiate the pupil into the practice of it ? 
 
 Sometime he will go a step farther and higher. Some- 
 time his eyes will be opened, and he will see that the laws 
 of nature are also laws of spirit ; that in the higher as well 
 as in the lower realms of crearion obedience is the only rule 
 of wisdom. He will see that his Heavenly Father will ] 
 work for the comfort and peace and enrichment of his \ 
 spirit, as well as for the nourishment and clothing of his | 
 body, when he will obey the laws of spirit. He will learn 
 that those laws are as immutable as gravitation, that he 
 cannot escape from their presence or evade their powers ; 
 that they will run on his errands, lift the burdens of care 
 and sorrow from his heart, elevate him into a purer at- 
 mosphere and clearer light, bring him into more intimate 
 
8 MECHANICAL EMPLOYMENTS AS 
 
 and lovely communion with the good and true in all 
 worlds, and with Him who creates all worlds and offers to 
 all men the treasures of His infinite riches, when he obeys 
 them. Obedience is the only condition ; it is the im- 
 mutable condition. The commandments are those laws. 
 The two great commandments which enjoin supreme love 
 to God and equal love to man are a summary of them. 
 
 I sometimes wonder why, of all men in the world, he 
 who deals with material substances, and knows by daily 
 experience that he cannot bring them into his service in 
 any other way than by learning their secrets and obeying 
 their laws, should not see that the same principle must rule 
 in mind as well as in matter, and should not seek with the 
 / same keen interest and docile spirit to know the laws of 
 those all-pervading and awful forces, and by obedience bring 
 himself into such intimate and friendly relations with them 
 that they will work with him and for him in attaining his 
 highest good. Every day he goes to school to this great 
 and wise teacher ; every hour he must practise this great- 
 est and most important of all lessons, that no step can be 
 taken and no reward can be gained but in the way of obe- 
 dience to immutable law. Some day, when men take the 
 laws of infinite wisdom, instead of the opinions of fallible 
 men, for their guide, they will learn this lesson and reap 
 its immeasurable rewards. 
 
 But I must pass on to notice some of the most im- 
 portant human qualities that grow out of this root prin- 
 ciple of obedience. Natural substances, and the laws 
 which govern their relations, their likes and dislikes, do 
 not lie upon the surface, open to indifference and careless 
 observation. They lie hidden under the veil of appear- 
 ances. They will be sought out and wooed before they can 
 
MEANS OF HUMAN CULTURE. 9 
 
 be won. They demand close, accurate, and patient obser- 
 vation ; only a penetrating sagacity can see their real 
 nature beneath the thin and alluring veil of appearances. 
 It is wonderful how long it has taken men to discover 
 some of the simplest, plainest, and most important forces. 
 When discovered, the world exclaims, Why did we not see 
 that before ? Steam, that giant power, which is now doing 
 the work of the world, spread its white banner and sung 
 its secret at every fireside for centuries before men had 
 the slightest conception of its nature and use. You all 
 know the story of Franklin and his kite. That force, 
 which filled the clouds with flame, terrified men with its 
 thunder, and seemed to be subject to no law, now lights 
 our streets and stores, and, with clear and steady radiance, 
 will soon turn night into day and winter into summer, in 
 our dwellings ; it will cook our food and serve us in the 
 most patient and gentle manner. 
 
 These are examples of the mighty forces in which we 
 move and by which we are penetrated, that pique our curi- 
 osity, call our slumbering faculties to awake from their 
 stupor, and prepare the way for their coming to our help. 
 They pass before us, though we see them not ; they touch 
 us on every side, though we feel them not ; they call to us 
 in the many-toned voices of wind and stream and wave, 
 though we hear them not. But those who are dealing 
 with the substances and forces of nature are more directly 
 in the way of their influence. They are being educated 
 by their daily employments to iook for treasures and help 
 in the unexplored realms that lie around them, and to 
 devise practical methods of bringing them into human 
 service. 
 
 Mechanical employments give full scope for the exercise 
 
10 MECHANICAL EMPLOYMENTS AS 
 
 and training of all the intellectual faculties. There is, as 
 we have seen, the widest and most charming field for ob- 
 servation and the exercise of the keenest sagacity. The 
 artisan does not deal in abstractions, but in substances that 
 can be seen and felt, and are subject to laws which he must 
 learn and obey. His rational faculties are constantly called 
 into exercise and trained by observing the relations that 
 exist between various forms and substance^ and the adapta- 
 tion of means to secure the end he seeks. Judgment formed 
 by immutable laws must be exercised with regard to the na- 
 ture, strength, form, and combination of the materials he 
 uses. In some employments there is the largest room for 
 the exercise of taste and fancy and invention in the forms 
 the workman proposes to create. 
 
 It is true that there are mechanical mechanics as well as 
 intelligent and skilful ones. And the former, doubtless, 
 vastly outnumber the latter. But this is true of men in 
 every employment. There are mechanical merchants and 
 lawyers and doctors and ministers. They learn by rote, 
 and they buy and sell, plead and practise and preach by 
 rote. There are very few men and women who think for 
 themselves. The majority follow the beaten path with 
 \ the exercise of just mind enough to keep in it. 
 
 But I am speaking of the tendency and scope of employ- 
 ments to call the intellectual faculties into action, and they 
 seem to me to be greatly in favor of the mechanic. I am 
 aware that this is not the prevalent opinion. There are 
 many causes that have operated against a true appreciation 
 of the influence and value of his work upon his intelligence 
 and character. He does not come so fully into public notice 
 and under such attractive forms as the artist, the poet, and 
 the member of the so-called learned professions. He does 
 
MEANS OF HUMAN CULTURE, 
 
 11 
 
 not wear so fine garments, may not have polish and grace 
 of manner, is not gifted with power of speech. His hands 
 may be hard by the use of his tools, and soiled with the 
 substances he uses. His knowledge is not in his tongue 
 but in his hands ; his grace is not in courtesy of manners, 
 but in the deftness and skill with which he uses his tools. 
 He is at a constant disadvantage when judged by the com- 
 mon and factitious standards. But when measured by the 
 only true standard, — that of use, — his employment and the 
 results of it in gaining and expressing intelligence will not 
 be found wanting in any essential respect. 
 
 Take expression of his intelligence and worth as an ex- 
 ample. He embodies his thought and, if he is a good 
 man, his affection in his work rather than in his words. 
 He learns by practice, and he learns much more than is 
 generally supposed. It requires more thought and skill 
 to drive a nail without splitting the wood or marring its 
 surface, or to saw a board, or last a shoe, than most men 
 possess. These are small and common things, and do not 
 arrest attention. But look at the results of mechanical 
 labor and invention. The amount of patient thought, of 
 varied knowledge, of skill in handling materials, and of 
 profound intelligence is simply amazing. Take a common 
 needle, and compare it with the crude ore in the hills. Is 
 it not the embodiment of a vast amount of thought and 
 intelligence of the highest kind? How many discoveries 
 had to be made that required long, acute, and patient 
 thought before its substance was fit for its use! How 
 many inventions must be devised before its form could be 
 determined, its surface polished, its point sharpened, its 
 eye drilled and made smooth to carry the thread without 
 friction ! Has any young lady who uses the needle as 
 
12 
 
 MECHANICAL EMPLOYMENTS AS 
 
 much intelligence as is embodied in it? Is there any 
 poem or novel that is the expression of as much thought 
 that contributes in so many large and useful ways to 
 human comfort and use? How little we think of this 
 little common household necessity, — how much of the 
 poem and romance ! When you clothe yourself with an 
 elegant silk, do you ever think of the worm that spun it 
 for you, — how much observation, how much knowledge 
 of material substances, how many inventions, and how 
 much skilful and delicate handling were necessary to make 
 and dye the beautiful fabric ? 
 
 But these are simple processes compared with many others 
 which are familiar to every one. The steam-engine, in its 
 development from its first inception in the tea-kettle to 
 its present perfected form, and in its varied adaptations to 
 human needs, is the embodiment of more than a century 
 of observation, of experiment, and patient thought. Suc- 
 cess in doing its work depends upon the most accurate 
 adjustment of all its parts, upon the orderly arrangement 
 and combination of many diverse forms, a knowledge of 
 the elasticity, the rigidity, and the special nature of solids, 
 the strength of fire and water and steam, of force and 
 resistance. Every substance in the kingdoms of nature, 
 every science, every art, every device of human ingenuity, 
 every touch of human skill, has contributed, either directly 
 or indirectly, to its perfection. It is a monument grander 
 in its proportions and more noble in its forms, when re- 
 garded from human use, than the pyramids or any mauso- 
 leum of past ages. It is alive with human affection, it is 
 active in human service. 
 
 We have only the most inadequate conception of the 
 difficulties that have been overcome, of the multitude of 
 
MEANS OF HUMAN CULTURE. 13 
 
 experiments that have been tried, of the days and nights 
 of protracted and laborious thought that have been given 
 to it, of the failures and disappointments and the immense 
 sums of money that have been expended in perfecting it. 
 When the first Baldwin locomotive was successfully com- 
 pleted, an advertisement appeared in a morning paper 
 saying that it would make regular trips to Germantown in 
 fair weather. If it rained, horses would draw the cars as 
 usual. We may infer from this that the first locomotive 
 was like many Christians, of use only in fair weather. 
 What a change from then to the present! And this 
 change has been efi'ected by the knowledge of many sciences 
 and its application to a specific purpose. 
 
 We overlook the knowledge, the labor, the thought, the 
 o-enius embodied in common and useful forms, and the 
 more common and useful, the less they attract our notice, 
 while we regard with admiration and delight a picture or a 
 poem. But there is more knowledge, more genius, more 
 wisdom, more thought expressed in forms specially adapted 
 to human use, comfort, and progress in a steamship than in 
 all the pictures ever painted and all the poems ever penned. 
 I know what a dreadful heresy this statement is. I am not 
 insensible to the use and glory of art and song. They 
 have been, and are, a means of culture and ennobling joy to 
 me. But compare Tennyson, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Byron, 
 Milton, and Shakspeare, with Arkwright, Watt, Fulton, 
 Fitch, Whitney, the inventor of the cotton-gin, and Morse. 
 Who have expressed the most thought in forms adapted to 
 human use? Who have discovered the most precious 
 secrets of nature, and brought her hidden forces into human 
 service ? Whose labors could we dispense with at the least 
 detriment to human progress and the communion of mind 
 
14 
 
 MECHANICAL EMPLOYMENTS AS 
 
 with mind? Books are invaluable in the diffusion of 
 knowledge. Science and art cannot be overestimated. 
 But books are the record of what men have done ; and 
 which is the nobler service, to do the deed or to record it ? 
 Science itself is largely indebted to mechanical inventions 
 for the means of its investigations and discoveries. What 
 progress could science have made without the telescope, the 
 microscope, the compass, the apparatus of the laboratory ? 
 It is not that I value science and literature less, but me- 
 chanical employments and genius more, that I give them 
 so high a place in human progress and culture. 
 
 A just comparison of results and the means of attaining 
 them will show that there are no employments in which 
 men engage, considering them in all their bearing and re- 
 lations, that are better adapted to awaken curiosity, to 
 cultivate accurate observation, to discipline the reason, to 
 stimulate thought and direct it to noble ends, to elevate 
 the taste, to cherish a love for the accurate, the beautiful 
 and noble in form, to establish and cultivate the judgment, 
 and to call all the intellectual faculties into harmonious 
 and useful exercise, than the mechanical employments. 
 
 But the intellectual are not the noblest and most precious 
 human faculties. Man was made not only to know but to 
 love. He has affections as well as intelligence, on whose 
 control and wise exercise depends his happiness far more 
 than his knowledge. " Man," says Swedenborg, is a form 
 of use, and every one becomes human according to the 
 extent and quality of his use." In the final decision, 
 "Every one," says our Lord, "will be judged by his 
 works." Is there any employment that leads more directly 
 to a useful life than that of the mechanic, and in itself 
 better calculated to call out his love for others ? Every- 
 
MEANS OF HUMAN CULTURE. 
 
 15 
 
 thing he puts his hand to is a form of use. His work 
 constantly reminds him of his brother's wants, and he has 
 the satisfi\ction of knowing that every day and every hour 
 he is doing something for the good of humanity. If he 
 is making a pin, or forging the shaft for an engine, making 
 a shoe or a garment, weaving a carpet, or building a house, 
 he is supplying human wants ; he is contributing to human 
 comfort ; he is helping others to do their work ; he is 
 carrying them on their journeys; bringing minds and 
 hearts into communion ; he is providing facilities for in- 
 structing the ignorant, lending a helping hand to the ex- 
 plorer into new realms of thought. He helps the scientist 
 to look in upon the remote worlds, and to examine the 
 infinitesimal forms of minerals and animal organisms. He 
 lights and warms and adorns our dwellings, brings water to 
 our hand, and multiplies all the conveniences of domestic 
 and social life. He can see that he is performing these 
 essential uses. His work is not aimless ; it is direct, spe- 
 cific. Every stroke tells. Is there any other employment 
 better calculated to call all the noble affections into play ? 
 
 The artisan stands between every man, woman, and 
 child and the crude materials embodied in the three king- 
 doms of nature, and by the magic of his skill they are 
 transformed into means serviceable for use. The wood in 
 the forest, the marble in the quarry, the clay in the bank, 
 the metal in the mine pass through his hands, take on the 
 form of his thought, become arranged by his intelligence, 
 and the product is the modern dwelling. Is there any 
 fancy in fairy tale more wonderful than this ? By the skill 
 of the tanner and the shoemaker the raw skin is trans- 
 formed into the useful shoe. Do you ever think of your 
 indebtedness to these humble toilers for your protection 
 
16 MECHANICAL EMPLOYMENT AS 
 
 and comfort ? Do they ever think of the service they 
 are rendering you ? — a service which cannot be compen- 
 sated by dollars and cents. The jewels which sparkle in 
 royal crowns and add lustre to queenly beauty, the silks 
 and precious stuffs which clothe and give new charms to 
 the loveliness of woman, owe their beauty, their lustre, 
 their value to the artisan. He stands between the worm, 
 the mine, and the wearer, and by the transforming power 
 of his skill and patient labor they become robes of beauty 
 and gems of light. But of far greater importance is the 
 service he is rendering to our common humanity. He 
 takes the materials which our Heavenly Father has pro- 
 vided in such abundance, puts his thought, his intelligence, 
 and he has every conceivable motive for putting his love 
 and good will toward men, into them and passing them on 
 as tokens of his love and fidelity to human good. Every- 
 thing he touches becomes a message not only of his 
 knowledge and his skill, but a fit embodiment of his regard 
 for his fellow-man. 
 
 Thus the artisan in every employment has the most 
 ample means, facilities, and motives for the development 
 of every human faculty. His work, his position in the 
 social fabric, call upon him for obedience, skill, intelli- 
 gence, patience, fidelity, generosity, and beneficence. It 
 gives him opportunities for the exercise of unselfish and 
 noble affections, — for constant practice in the two funda- 
 mental laws of heavenly life, love to God and man. I 
 am fully aware that this is not the central motive 
 which the great majority of mechanics or workmen in any 
 other field of human industry put into their work. And 
 this is the saddest and most hopeless fact in their condi- 
 tion. They estimate their work, as do those who engage 
 
MEANS OF HUMAN CULTURE, 17 
 
 in trade atid commerce, and in the professions of law, medi- 
 cine, and theology, by the wages they receive. Thus their 
 employment is only the means of supplying their material 
 wants, and gaining social position, when it should be re- 
 garded and prized for the means it supplies of improving 
 their own natures, of becoming more intelligent and nobler 
 men. I do not say that wages are to be ignored. I know 
 they cannot and ought not to be. I wish they were larger, 
 and they will be when the workman becomes a larger and 
 a better man. I desire to show how we can get something 
 more valuable than money for work. If I could tell the 
 mechanics of this city how they could add fifty, or even 
 ten, per cent, to their wages, there is no house large 
 enough to give standing room to those who would crowd 
 to hear. I cannot do this ; but I can tell them how to get 
 something of more precious value ; a prize that is within 
 the reach of all ; a compensation that will not add to their 
 labor, but will lighten it ; a reward of which neither employer, 
 nor hard times, nor sickness, nor even death itself can de- 
 prive them. I can tell them how to secure an honor and 
 gain a position that no amount of wealth can confer upon 
 them. It is an honor which man can neither give nor 
 withhold. It is a nobility that cannot be measured by the 
 changing standards of man's fallible judgment, which is 
 gained and can only be gained, by doing noble work, and 
 that we always do when we labor with noble motives. 
 The Divine, and, consequently, the perfect, standard of 
 noble work that can never fail of adequate reward, is 
 use performed with the purpose of being useful. 
 
 The standards of human selfishness and greed must be and 
 will be reversed. Is not producing food as worthy a vocation 
 as consuming it ? Is not making a garment more honorable 
 
18 
 
 MECHANICAL EMPLOYMENT AS 
 
 than wearing it ? Is not building a house a higher attain- 
 ment than living in it? spinning and weaving cloth a more 
 useful employment than wearing it ? constructing an engine 
 and a palace-car a greater work than riding in it ? Is not 
 creating nobler, wiser, worthier than destroying ? In a word, 
 service is a higher and a more honorable position than being 
 served. To learn, to work, to live from love to God and 
 man, is the highest human attainment, and will receive the 
 \ largest, the most honorable, and the most precious rewards. 
 There is no employment better adapted to secure these re- 
 wards than taking materials which our Heavenly Father 
 has provided in the greatest variety and abundance, and, 
 with patient labor and our utmost skill, moulding them 
 into forms adapted to human wants and human use. 
 
 I am aware that by mere force of will we cannot, at 
 once and permanently, put ourselves under the control of 
 these unselfish, noble, and ennobling motives. The neces- 
 sities of providing food, clothing, and a home for ourselves 
 and others press upon us, and the means of supplying 
 them seem to be the only real reward of our work. It is the 
 first in the order of time, and it requires some reflection, 
 some looking before and after, to see that it is not the first 
 in importance,— that it is not, indeed, the only reward we 
 can obtain for our labor. The love of the world is also 
 clamorous for its rights, and asserts its claims for recog- 
 nition and immediate gratification. The natural reward 
 appeals to the senses ; it is something we can understand 
 and appreciate. It is what we are getting, rather than 
 what we are giving, that absorbs our attention. How, 
 then, can we think of others while engaged in our work? 
 
 It is not as difficult as it seems. There are very few 
 persons who are so selfish that it does not give them pleas- 
 
MEANS OF HUMAN CULTURE. 
 
 19 
 
 ure to render to others a service in some form, especially 
 if it does not cost them anything. There is a " luxury in 
 doing good," and multitudes dream of the good they would 
 do if they had abundant means. But it is a luxury in 
 which every one can indulge. It does not require leisure 
 or a large income ; it only requires doing hone^^t work from 
 regard to the good of others. Every mechanic, and every 
 one who is engaged in any useful employment, can think 
 of the use he is rendering others by his work, and can do 
 it from regard to others. Take the miner as an example. 
 While he is digging coal in the chambers of the hills he 
 can think of the comfort and blessing that coal will be to 
 others. It will warm their dwellings and fill them with 
 light. It will be a blessing to the poor and the rich ; it 
 will be a comfort to the workman in his shop, to the clerk 
 in the store and office, to the little children in every home. 
 Why cannot he think of these things, as well as of how 
 many cents he will receive for every ton of coal he mines ? 
 Wherein lies the difficulty? It will not diminish his 
 strength, it will not take a cent from his wages. On the 
 contrary, it will warm his heart and fill it with peace. It 
 will give him the happiness of feeling and knowing that 
 he is of some use in the world ; that he is contributing to 
 human well-bemg. The same principle applies to every 
 employment, however obscure and humble it may be. 
 
 It will require some efi'ort at first to change the purpose 
 from a selfish to an unselfish one, and to turn the thought 
 away from ourselves to others. But a little patient prac- 
 tice will enable every one to do it, and it will become less 
 difficult the more it is practised. It will become habitual, 
 and it will change the whole current of thought ; it will 
 introduce the workman into a new world ; it will put joy 
 
20 MEANS OF HUMAN CULTURE. 
 
 into his heart and light into his understanding, and skill 
 into his hands. It will gradually extend to all his relations 
 to others. It will make him a better and wiser man. He 
 will be attaining the true and the highest success. 
 
 P H I T. A D E T. P H I A : 
 
 NEW CHURCH TRACT AND PUBLICATION SOCIETY, 
 Twenty-Skconj) and Chestnut Streets, 
 NEW lORK: E. H. SWINNEY, No. 20 COOPER UNION. 
 BOSTON: MASSACHUSETTS NEW CHURCH UNION, 169 TREMONT STREET. 
 
 Printed by J. B, Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia. 
 
ors, A.O TS 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 The Aierican New GMr cli Tract anti PnWication Society. 
 
 SERMONS AND DOCTRINAL LECTURES. 
 
 By Rev. Chauneey Giles. 
 The following Sermons and Doctrinal Lectures by Rev. Chauneey Giles 
 have been issued in tract form by the American New Church Tract and Pub- 
 lication Society. They are neatly printed on fine paper, and are alike in style 
 and appearance, the number of pages varying from i6 to 24. 
 
 DOCTRINAL 
 
 No. 
 
 Who Was Jesus Christ? 
 How Does the Lord Save Men? 
 The Sufferings and Death of Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 The Saving Efficacy of the Lord's 
 
 Blood. 
 The Punishment of Sin. 
 The Forgiveness of Sin. 
 Purification from Sin Illustrated 
 
 by the Refining of Gold and 
 
 Silver. 
 
 The New and Old Atonement. 
 Union with the Lord : Its Nature, 
 
 Means, and Blessedness. 
 The Spiritual Wants of the Age. 
 The True Idea of God. 
 The True Idea of Man. 
 
 LECTURES. 
 
 No. 
 
 13. The Spiritual World. 
 
 14. The World of Spirits, or Interme- 
 
 diate State. 
 
 15. The World of Spirits the Place of 
 
 Man's Finai Judgment. 
 
 16. The World of Spirits as a Place 
 
 (or State) cl Instruction and 
 Preparation or Heaven. 
 
 17. Hell: Its Orig n and Nature. 
 
 18. The Sufferings of the Wicked. 
 
 19. The Sufferings of the Wicked. Are 
 
 they Etema^? 
 
 20. Heaven : What it is. Where and 
 
 How Formed. 
 
 21. The Happiness of Heaven. 
 
 22. Heavenly Happiness : Endle.«>s 
 
 and Ever Increasing. 
 
 No. 
 
 SERMONS. 
 No. 
 
 1. The Light of the World. 
 
 2. The Elements of a Heavenly 
 
 Character. 
 
 3. Love : The Light and Joy of 
 
 Life. 
 
 4. Onyx Stones ; or, The Book of Life. 
 
 5. The Widow's Pot of Oil. 
 
 6. The Coming of the New Age. 
 
 7. Rest for the Weary and Heavy 
 
 Laden. 
 
 8. The Ministry of Fear. 
 
 9. What is Evangelical Religion ? 
 10. The Conquest over Evil by Little 
 
 and Little, 
 n. Modern Unbelief : Its Cause, Na- 
 ture, and Remedy. 
 X2. The Resurrection of the Lord. 
 13. The Laws of Ascent from a Nat- 
 ural to a Heavenly Life. 
 
 14. Unity Among Brethren: Its Ori- 
 
 gin, Means, and Effects. 
 
 15. The Doctrines of the New Church, 
 
 the Measure of a Man. 
 
 16. The Death of the Body a Ministry 
 
 of Life to the Soul. 
 
 17. The Divine Providence in Na- 
 
 tional Affairs. 
 
 18. Efficacious Prayer: The Condi- 
 
 tions on which it is Answered. 
 
 19. The Nature and Use of Prayer. 
 
 20. Love to the Lord. What it is and 
 
 how manifested. 
 
 21. The Church of the Future. 
 
 22. The Law of Heavenly Reward. 
 
 23. Man's Immeasurable Capacity to 
 
 Love, to Know, and to Enjoy. 
 
 24. The Incarnation: Its Necessity, 
 
 Nature, and Effects. 
 
 When ordered singly, the price of these tracts is 2 cents each ; 50 copies, 
 75 cents; 100 copies, ^1.25. If ordered by mail, add 10 cents for every 5c 
 copies. For sale at the "New Church Book-Room," corner Chestnut and 
 Twenty-second Streets, Philadelphia, or by E. H. Swinney. 20 Cooper Union, 
 New York. Missionaries supplied without charge from either Philadelphia or 
 New York. 
 
 A liberal discount is made to Societies, Associations, and individuals, who 
 wish to obtain any of these tracts in quantities for distribution. When wanted 
 for tiiis purpose, send to Philadelphia Book-Room. 
 
fk Afflerican Kew CMrcli Tract and Pilicatioa Society. 
 
 REVISED SERIES OF TRACTS. 
 
 1. Brief Statement of the Doctrines 
 
 of the New Church, by Rev. B. 
 F. Barrett. 
 
 2. The Church of the New Jerusa- 
 
 lem, by Rev. C. Giles. 
 
 3. The Resurrection and the Spirit- 
 
 ual World, 
 
 4. The Doctrine of Substitution, by 
 
 John Hyde. 
 
 5. The Ministry of Sorrow, by Rev. 
 
 C. Giles. 
 
 6. Is it Unreasonable? An Appeal 
 
 in Behalf of the Doctrines of 
 the New Church. 
 
 7. The Apparent Contradictions of 
 
 the Sacred Scriptures Recon- 
 ciled, by Rev. C. Giles. 
 
 8. Death the Gate of Life. 
 
 9. The Apocalyptic Jerusalem. 
 
 10. The Life After Death. From 
 
 Swedenborg. 
 
 11. What is Heaven? From Sweden- 
 
 borg. 
 
 12. The Anger of the Lord. How is 
 
 such Scripture Phraseology to 
 be Explained? 
 
 13. The Way to Heaven. 
 
 14. The Sacred Scripture. Its own 
 
 answer to the question : Has it 
 a Spiritual Sense? 
 
 15. Infants in Heaven. From Swe- 
 
 denborg. 
 
 16. The Corner-Stone. 
 
 17. Concerning'the Sacred Scriptures, 
 
 or the Word of God. By Em- 
 anuel Swedenborg. 
 
 No. 
 
 18. Popular View of the Atonement. 
 
 19. The Great Reconciliation. 
 
 20. Washing our Spiritual Robes, by 
 
 Rev. Oliver Dyer. 
 
 21. Who is our Neighbor? From 
 
 Swedenborg. 
 
 22. What is it to Die ? From Sweden- 
 
 borg. 
 
 23. No Heaven Without Work, by 
 
 Rev. C. Giles. 
 
 24. Children After Death. 
 
 25. Evolution and Natural Selection 
 
 in the Light of the New 
 Church. 
 
 26. The Resurrection. 
 
 27. The New Church and Spiritism, 
 
 by Rev. C. Giles. 
 
 28. Judgment and the World of Spir- 
 
 its, by Rev. E. A. Beaman. 
 
 29. The Lord's Name in our Fore- 
 
 heads, by Rev. Oliver Dyer. 
 
 30. Predestination, by Rev. C. 
 
 Giles. 
 
 31. Regeneration. 
 
 32. What Must We Do to be Saved? 
 
 by Rev. C. Giles. 
 
 33. Reasons for Embracing the Doc- 
 
 trines of the New Church, by 
 Rev. Thos- A. King. 
 
 34. Prayer: the Philosophy of it, the 
 
 Religion of it, and the Use of 
 it. By Rev. Oliver Dyer. 
 
 35. Can Murderers be Saved? By 
 
 Rev. E. A. Beaman. 
 
 When ordered singly, the price of these tracts is 2 cents each, without re- 
 gard to the number of pages ; 50 copies, 75 cents ; 100 copies, $1.25. If ordered 
 by mail, add 10 cents for every 50 copies. For sale at the "New Church Book- 
 Room," corner of Chestnut and Twenty-second Streets, Philadelphia, or by 
 E. H. Swinney, 20 Cooper Union, New York. Missionaries supplied without 
 charge from either Philadelphia or New York. 
 
 A liberal discount is made to Societies, Associations, and individuals, who 
 wish to obtain any of these tracts in quantities for distribution. When wanted 
 for this purpose, send to Philadelphia Book-Room. 
 
PUBLISHED BY 
 
 The American Net CMrcli Tract anil Pnlcation Society. 
 
 DISCOURSES ON PRAYER. 
 
 By Rev. Chauncey Giles. 
 
 No. 
 
 1. Hypocritical and Vain Prayer. 
 
 2. Conditions and Nature of Genuine 
 
 Prayer. 
 
 3. The Proper Object of Worship. 
 
 4. Hallowing the Lord's Name. 
 
 5. The Lord's Kingdom : What it is : 
 
 How to Pray for it. 
 
 6. Doing the Lord's Will in the Earth 
 
 as in Heaven. 
 
 No. 
 
 7. Daily Bread : What it is ; How to 
 
 Pray for it. 
 
 8. The Forgiveness of Sin. 
 
 9. Temptation. 
 
 10. Deliverance from Evil: What it 
 
 is, and How Effected. 
 
 11. The Lord's Kingdom, Power, and 
 
 Glory. 
 
 12. Summary View of the Lord's 
 
 Prayer. 
 
 SERMONS. 
 
 By Rev. James Reed. 
 
 No. 
 
 1. The Irrationality of Skepticism. 
 
 2. Preserve the Foundations. 
 
 3. The Lesson of the Harvest. 
 
 4. Faith and Prayer. 
 
 5. The Divine Humanity. 
 
 6. The Lord Jesus Christ Glorified. 
 
 7. The Lord's Care for the Little Ones . 
 
 8. The Value of True Doctrine. 
 
 9. The Doctrine of the Lord in its 
 
 Relation to Life. 
 
 No. 
 
 10. The Doctrine of Providence in its 
 
 Relation to Life. 
 
 11. The Doctrine of the Sacred Scrip- 
 
 tures in its Relation to Life. 
 
 12. The Doctrine of Faith in its Re- 
 
 lation to Life. 
 
 13. The Duty of Shunning Evils as 
 
 Sins against God. 
 
 When ordered singly, the price of these tracts is 2 cents each, without re- 
 gard to the number of pages ; 50 copies, 75 cents ; 100 copies, $1.25. If ordered 
 by mail, add 10 cents for every 50 copies. For sale at the ** New Church Book- 
 Room," corner of Chestnut and Twenty-second Streets, Philadelphia, or by 
 E. H. Swinney, 20 Cooper Union, New York. Missionaries supplied without 
 charge from either Philadelphia or New York. 
 
 A liberal discount is made to Societies, Associations, and individuals, who 
 wish to obtain any of these tracts in quantities for distribution. When wanted 
 for this purpose, send to Philadelphia Book- Room. 
 
THEOLOGICAL WORKS 
 
 OF 
 
 EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. 
 
 Arcana Celestia. 10 Vols. $6.00 
 
 Apocalypse Revealed. 2 Vols. 1.2.0 
 
 True Christian Keligion .... ... 1.00 
 
 Divine Love and Wisdom ... ... .50 
 
 Divine Providence .... .... .50 
 
 Conjugial Love .60 
 
 Heaven and Hell . .50 
 
 Four Leading Doctrines . . ..... .50 
 
 Miscellaneous Theological Works . ... .60 
 
 (These are the cheaper editions. There are finer and more costly 
 editions, English and American, catalogues and prices of 
 which will be furnished. Address as below.) 
 
 Doctrine of Charity Paper, 10 Cents 
 
 of Faith " 10 
 
 of Life . 10 
 
 of the Lord " 20 " 
 
 " of the Sacred Scripture . . " 16 " 
 
 £ntercourse between the Soul and Body . *• 10 •* 
 
 ijast Judgment ** 30 " 
 
 White Horse '* 10 " 
 
 Heavenly Doctrines . . y . . 10 " 
 
 Earths in the Universe . . . . " 86 " 
 
 Athanasian Creed ...... 80 '* 
 
 Summary Exposition of the Internal 
 
 Sense of the Prophets and Psalms . " 40 " 
 
 Any of these books will be sent by mail on receipt of price. Address 
 
 NEW CHURCH TRACT AND PUBLICATION SOCIETY, 22D AND CHESTNUT STS., PHILADELPHIA. 
 E. H. SWINNEY, No. 20 COOPER UNION, NEW YORK. 
 MASSACHUSETTS NEW CHURCH UNION, 169 TREMONT STREET, BOSTOK, 
 
Return this book on or before the 
 Latest Date stamped below. A 
 charge is made on all overdue 
 books. 
 
 University of Illinois Library 
 
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