| Week-Day Religion |
Chapter 10 |
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Then the work we do must itself be pure and good work in a lawful and proper calling. No formal consecration can make any wrong doing pleasing to the Master.
Then, again, we must do our work well. Work that we slight or do dishonestly is not acceptable service. This phase of Christian duty is sometimes overlooked. Those who would not utter a false word or commit a dishonest act will yet perform their work carelessly or imperfectly. The principles of religion apply just as well to the carpenter’s trade or to the tailor’s or to the housekeeper’s work as to the business of the banker or the merchant. It is just as really dishonest to sew up a seam that will rip or to put inferior material or bad workmanship into a building as it is to use a short yardstick or light weights or to adulterate coffee or sugar. God is not pleased with any work unless it is the very best we can render.
The old cathedral builders understood this when they finished every smallest detail of their stupendous fabrics as conscientiously as the most massive parts. The gilded spires, far away in the clouds, which no human eye could ever inspect, were made with as much care as the altar mouldings or the carvings on the great doors, which all should see. They slighted nothing because it was not to be exposed to human gaze. They wrought for the great Taskmaster’s eye. “Why carve you so carefully the tresses of that statue’s head?” asked one of an ancient sculptor as he wrought with marvelous pains on the back part of the figure. “The statue will stand high up in its niche, with its back to the wall, and no one will see it.” – “Ah! The gods will see it,” was the sublime answer. So must we work if we would render pleasing service to the Lord. The builder must build as conscientiously in the parts that are to be covered from sight as in those that will be most conspicuous. The dressmaker must sew as faithfully the hidden seams as the most showy. I do not believe that we can ever serve Christ acceptably by any kind of shams or deceits.
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