that the real pleasure he had in his money,
for which he had toiled hard, was in a kind of mental calculation as to
how many of his neighbours he could buy up.

"I do all things that I may honour the Father," said Jesus: and work
which is not under this impulse, has in it no element of permanent
satisfaction. In some way every work has to be brought into a
conscious relation to God, or we only swell the crowd either of
self-seekers, or of the men whose toil leaves no such impression upon
their character as gives sign or evidence of a sane or worthy aim and
end.

To give to work its essential dignity, and preserve it from mechanical
routine we must bring motive into it--high and worthy purpose. There
is no virtue necessarily in being always at work, but there is
tremendous power in being able to work when we do work. Do not
discount the old advice because it is commonplace: "work when you work,
and play when you play." Master the distinction there is between
having what is called your "fling," and having your really "good time."
Get all the rational pleasure you can out of your young days. Let your
religion be no dog Cerberus, snarling at the heels of innocent
enjoyment. But never lose sight of the fact that unless you have a
definite and worthy purpose, to attain which you keep your good time
subordinate, that good time will have the same relation to genuine
pleasure that the throbbings of an ulcer have to the healthy action of
the heart. And a very plain word is needed here. Our trouble to-day
is not that young people will have their pleasures and amusements; it
is that so many of them will have nothing else. One who knows his day
has told us, that were it not for the sporting intelligence in the
evening paper, not a few of our young men would forget how to read. It
is a common experience to meet young men who have been decently
educated, as things go, and yet they are ignorant as babies about the
social and political questions which so vitally affect the welfare of
the State. Decently educated, I say, as things go. But how far is
that? "I have five clerks in my office," said a Bradford merchant
lately, "who probably could tell me all I want to know and more, about
a horse race, a cricket, or a football match; and not one of them could
translate for me a foreign business letter. This is one principal
reason," he added, "why Bradford is overrun with Germans, and why the
Germans are getting hold of so mu