said it?' I answer:
Perhaps that the minds of his disciples might be troubled at its
presence, arise against it, and do him right by casting it out--and so
Wisdom be justified of her children.

But there are some who, if the notion of reward is not naturally a
trouble to them, yet have come to feel it such, because of the words of
certain objectors who think to take a higher stand than the Christian,
saying the idea of reward for doing right is a low, an unworthy idea.
Now, verily, it would be a low thing for any child to do his father's
will in the hope that his father would reward him for it; but it is
quite another thing for a father whose child endeavours to please him,
to let him know that he recognizes his childness toward him, and will be
fatherly good to him. What kind of a father were the man who, because
there could be no merit or desert in doing well, would not give his
child a smile or a pleased word when he saw him trying his best? Would
not such acknowledgment from the father be the natural correlate of the
child's behaviour? and what would the father's smile be but the perfect
reward of the child? Suppose the father to love the child so that he
wants to give him everything, but dares not until his character is
developed: must he not be glad, and show his gladness, at every shade of
a progress that will at length set him free to throne his son over all
that he has? 'I am an unprofitable servant,' says the man who has done
his duty; but his lord, coming unexpectedly, and finding him at his
post, girds himself, and makes him sit down to meat, and comes forth and
serves him. How could the divine order of things, founded for growth and
gradual betterment, hold and proceed without the notion of return for a
thing done? Must there be only current and no tide? How can we be
workers with God at his work, and he never say 'Thank you, my child'?
Will he take joy in his success and give none? Is he the husbandman to
take all the profit, and muzzle the mouth of his ox? When a man does
work for another, he has his wages for it, and society exists by the
dependence of man upon man through work and wages. The devil is not the
inventor of this society; he has invented the notion of a certain
degradation in work, a still greater in wages; and following this up,
has constituted a Society after his own likeness, which despises work,
leaves it undone, and so can claim its wages without disgrace.

If you say, 'No one ought t