This is the significance that physical labor possesses for man in
every community; but in our community, where the avoidance of this
law of labor has occasioned the unhappiness of a whole class of
people, employment in physical labor acquires still another
significance,--the significance of a sermon, and of an occupation
which removes a terrible misfortune that is threatening mankind.

To say that physical labor is an insignificant occupation for a man
of education, is equivalent to saying, in connection with the
erection of a temple: "What does it matter whether one stone is laid
accurately in its place?" Surely, it is precisely under conditions
of modesty, simplicity, and imperceptibleness, that every magnificent
thing is accomplished; it is impossible to plough, to build, to
pasture cattle, or even to think, amid glare, thunder, and
illumination. Grand and genuine deeds are always simple and modest.
And such is the grandest of all deeds which we have to deal with,--
the reconciliation of those fearful contradictions amid which we are
living. And the deeds which will reconcile these contradictions are
those modest, imperceptible, apparently ridiculous ones, the serving
one's self, physical labor for one's self, and, if possible, for
others also, which we rich people must do, if we understand the
wretchedness, the unscrupulousness, and the danger of the position
into which we have drifted.

What will be the result if I, or some other man, or a handful of men,
do not despise physical labor, but regard it as indispensable to our
happiness and to the appeasement of our conscience? This will be the
result, that there will be one man, two men, or a handful of men,
who, coming into conflict with no one, without governmental or
revolutionary violence, will decide for ourselves the terrible