Article January 4, 1908 Issue

WORK

PROF. JOEL RUFUS MOSLEY

Thomas Carlyle says, "Blessed is the man who has found his work." Activity is the beautiful necessity of our nature and being, and of all nature and being so far as we know. God, according to our highest knowledge and conceptions of Him, is perfect activity as well as perfect being. Jesus said, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." God is Love, and it belongs to the very nature of Love to be active rather than passive. God is good, and it belongs to the very nature of good to do good as well as to be good. In like manner all of the synonyms and attributes of God are active and not passive; and nothing that lives, nothing that is, is ever wholly inert and passive. Life is activity and death is passivity; and the higher and more perfect the activity, the higher and more perfect the life. In our individual experience we live most harmoniously as well as most abundantly when we are most responsive to the good there is for us to think, to will, and to do; and this individual experience is confirmed by the whole experience of humanity.

The rest for which we long is not a cessation from the activities of good; but the rest which comes from feeling forever secure in the arms (in the activities) of Life and Truth and Love. What we most need and really desire is the perfect rest of perfect and harmonious activity, and not the temporary and imperfect sense of rest which mortals seek through idleness, ease, and dissipation. Mrs. Eddy tells us in Science and Health (p. 519) that "the highest and sweetest rest, even from a human standpoint, is in holy work." Even the lower sense of rest is for those who do their part of the world's work. Those who seek this rest directly, through idleness and selfish ease, find ennui instead of rest and discord instead of ease; "but they that wait upon the Lord [to know and to do His will] shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." They shall also have all the rest they need from their labors as well as in their labors.

The man who does his work so well that it becomes to him a recreation and a fine art, and to others a joy and a blessing, finds his insurance in and through his work. We are never afraid so long as we believe that our work is so dear to God that we cannot be spared, but we can never feel quite secure if we are doing poorly what we should be and could be doing well. We are self-condemned when we are not doing what we should and could do best, and we are afraid when we are doing the things that we should not be doing. Thus it is that perfect work, perfectly done, casteth out fear; and that worthy work poorly done or left undone, as well as all worthless and evil work, brings uneasiness, worry, self-condemnation, and fear.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

"LET THERE BE LIGHT."