Labor as the Life-Blood of Society by William Howitt

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, January 22, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 4

Labor as the Life-Blood of Society

By William Howitt

LABOR is the very life-blood of society, stirring in all its veins, and diffusing vigor and enjoyment through the whole system. Without our labor, all life, except that of the rudest and most savage kind, must perish. Labor is the grand pedestal of God's blessings upon earth; it is more: like man and the world itself, it is the offspring and the work of God. All honor, then, to labor, the offspring of the Deity, the most ancient of ancients, sent forth by the Almighty into these nether worlds, the most noble of nobles! Honor to that divine principle which has filled the earth with all comforts and joys. Whatever we see or perceive in heaven or on the earth, is the product of labor. The sky above us, the ground beneath us, the air we breathe, the sun, the moon, the stars,—what are they? The product of labor. They are the labors of the Omnipotent, and all our labors are but a continuance of his. Our work is a divine work. We carry on what God began.—William Howitt.