From our earliest remembrance, the word work was made to signify a task imposed by force, or undertaken through duty or volition. Within its domain were toil and hardship. Back in the ages, we were told a command had been disobeyed, and the edict for that disobedience was condemnation to the prisonhouse of work. Rest was its counterpart; and the earliest dwellers on this planet found the complement of life encased within the meanings they gave to these two words - work and rest.

In the evolution of man came the development of ideals; and work was given a higher meaning, for it represented the path to the cherished end. Yet its earliest signification still hangs like a pall over childhood and early youth; and even the world's great toilers too often only feel in it its early meaning of thraldom. Pleasure in work has had a slow growth. It began to assert itself centuries ago. It is reserved to the twentieth century, however, to develop mentality to a point where one may always find joy in work. Will the twentieth century fulfill to man this mission? Many have approached that plane - few, if any, have placed themselves absolutely upon it.

Were one to contemplate nature as it unfolds itself to the eye in the speechless life, we would observe that everywhere is ceaseless action in every living thing. All life is a great mystery of throbbings and responses. Roots reach down for moisture - seeking their own - and the warm sunlight draws this upward, assisting to convert it into the constituents required by each peculiar life for its growth, that it may fulfill its destiny. Work everywhere. Not a command of infinite Being that man must obey because a greater than man said - this is the Law; but a law even infinite Being, Omniscience, the great primeval atom, the fathomless It, (call this Intelligence, what you will) as well as all living entities, must obey, because work is an integral part of life. Work is the eternal must that gives expression to life, and happy he who has learned to love what makes life possible to express individuality. Even in sleep, the subjective self assumes control while the conscious slumbers; and the heart continues its beatings, and the blood is sent forward in its normal channels, assisting each organ of the body to perform its work, in accordance with the law of life. Continued pulsation, ceaseless vibration, is life's refrain. We cannot escape from it, and if we love life we should love work. Even he who claims to be weary of work is simply longing to turn from one kind to another. Great wealth cannot take work from one, for it imposes duties, social and other, in spite of voluntary wish. Work and life then are inseparable, bound together by an ineffaceable decree - obey and live, refuse and perish.

If it be, then, that existence is subject to this mighty law, let us seek to find, not merely the grandeur or nobleness in work, but how to love it always, for then only can complete happiness be attainable and the dream of the soul made a reality.

Love is a word of wide significance. In its scope of attractiveness between two individuals, it often asserts itself spontaneously, giving all and asking nothing. Its endurance in such cases, however, depends on like mutual growths. The consideration of this is outside of my purpose, for we can cultivate love for work, even though it may often be a question if we can love one whom we may will to love. If we love our ideals, we should love the paths to their attainment. If we would win our ideals, this should not be a forced love. Let us see if we cannot overcome the errors of the past, and discover within our selfhoods the dominant stimuli required to make the path to achievement a delightful, entrancing road, even though it lead over walls and precipices, through tangled woods and over arid deserts to the sunlit, peaceful homes in the land of purpose fulfilled.

In the earth's earlier civilizations, the negativeness of law formed the great background of the nations' decrees. The laws did not set forth what the citizen or subject should do - they rather assumed he knew that, and that he was in rebellion by nature; and so, the edicts of kings and sovereigns and rulers were expressed in a series of "thou-shalt-nots." When mentality, always growing or evolving, even during those thousand years of medieval darkness, felt an up-reaching and sought new paths of usefulness, life's environment prompted the seeker to examine the law's decrees to discover if there were not some "shalt-nots" barring the way. Those "shalt-nots" sought for were generally found, and so to grow meant independent thinking and independent work, in opposition to the negatives rulers had made to check the ascent of man. Some paled when they discovered these barriers; and environment so cramped their understandings that rather than disobey bad laws, they felt it duty to turn back to Hoi Polloi, and let others do the thinking. And so, in countless cases, work did not pale these aspirants - that they were willing to do - but they felt they could not enter upon it and become violators of the law.

We who live to-day and enjoy the civilization and progress of which we are part, cannot but feel, as we look through history's pages, the great debt due to those who have worked against all this opposition to uplift man. We are the product of their tireless work and of their sacrifices for principle. In spite of all this, we ourselves have our own environments, our own prejudices, our own false gods, and our own ignorances. All reformers have had their prejudices and limitations. Luther placed himself firm as a rock on Hic est corpus meum. The old world 's greatest and wisest statesmen declared that a free republic and corrupt morals were always linked together. Through our literal and false interpretations of the Bible, sects have sprung up that are a menace to good morals and good citizenship.

Our age, grand and great as it is, is not free from countless errors. Environment still rears high her prison-walls. Prejudice, often used as a synonym for ignorance, stands sentinel without its gates. Fear of power within one's self to break through them is the canopy overhead, hiding out the sunlight of Truth. And the dreadful dogma of some ancient creed (erroneously called religion) has placed its blinding fetters over the eyes of intelligence so that Truth's rays often only dazzle and pain.