that any reason that you should remain ignorant of this wonderful
and infinite earth, which is firmly and instantly" target="_blank" title="ad.立即，立刻">instantly given you in

possession? Although your days are numbered, and the following
darkness sure, is it necessary that you should share the degradation

of the brute, because you are condemned to its mortality" target="_blank" title="n.致命性；死亡率">mortality; or live
the life of the moth, and of the worm, because you are to companion

them in the dust? Not so; we may have but a few thousands of days
to spend, perhaps hundreds only--perhaps tens; nay, the longest of

our time and best, looked back on, will be but as a moment, as the
twinkling of an eye; still we are men, not insects; we are living

spirits, not passing clouds. "He maketh the winds His messengers;
the momentary fire, His minister;" and shall we do less than THESE?

Let us do the work of men while we bear the form of them; and, as we
snatch our narrow portion of time out of Eternity, snatch also our

narrow inheritance of passion out of Immortality" target="_blank" title="n.致命性；死亡率">mortality--even though our
lives BE as a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then

vanisheth away.
But there are some of you who believe not this--who think this cloud

of life has no such close--that it is to float, revealed and
illumined, upon the floor of heaven, in the day when He cometh with

clouds, and every eye shall see Him. Some day, you believe, within
these five, or ten, or twenty years, for every one of us the

judgment will be set, and the books opened. If that be true, far
more than that must be true. Is there but one day of judgment?

Why, for us every day is a day of judgment--every day is a Dies
Irae, and writes its irrevocable verdict in the flame of its West.

Think you that judgment waits till the doors of the grave are
opened? It waits at the doors of your houses--it waits at the

corners of your streets; we are in the midst of judgment--the
insects that we crush are our judges--the moments we fret away are

our judges--the elements that feed us, judge, as they minister--and
the pleasures that deceive us, judge, as they indulge. Let us, for

our lives, do the work of Men while we bear the form of them, if
indeed those lives are NOT as a vapour, and do NOT vanish away.

"The work of men"--and what is that? Well, we may any of us know
very quickly, on the condition of being wholly ready to do it. But

many of us are for the most part thinking, not of what we are to do,
but of what we are to get; and the best of us are sunk into the sin

of Ananias, and it is a mortal one--we want to keep back part of the
price; and we continually talk of taking up our cross, as if the

only harm in a cross was the WEIGHT of it--as if it was only a thing
to be carried, instead of to be--crucified upon. "They that are His

have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts." Does that
mean, think you, that in time of national distress, of religious

trial, of crisis for every interest and hope of humanity--none of us
will cease jesting, none cease idling, none put themselves to any

wholesome work, none take so much as a tag of lace off their
footmen's coats, to save the world? Or does it rather mean, that

they are ready to leave houses, lands, and kindreds--yes, and life,
if need be? Life!--some of us are ready enough to throw that away,

joyless as we have made it. But "STATION in Life"--how many of us
are ready to quit THAT? Is it not always the great objection, where

there is question of finding something useful to do--"We cannot
leave our stations in Life"?

Those of us who really cannot--that is to say, who can only maintain
themselves by continuing in some business or salaried office, have

already something to do; and all that they have to see to is, that
they do it honestly and with all their might. But with most people

who use that apology, "remaining in the station of life to which
Providence has called them" means keeping all the carriages, and all

the footmen and large houses they can possibly pay for; and, once
for all, I say that if ever Providence DID put them into stations of

that sort--which is not at all a matter of certainty--Providence is
just now very distinctlycalling them out again. Levi's station in

life was the receipt of custom; and Peter's, the shore of Galilee;
and Paul's, the antechambers of the High Priest,--which "station in

life" each had to leave, with brief notice.
And, whatever our station in life may be, at this crisis, those of

us who mean to fulfil our duty ought first to live on as little as
we can; and, secondly, to do all the wholesome work for it we can,

and to spend all we can spare in doing all the sure good we can.
And sure good is, first in feeding people, then in dressing people,

then in lodging people, and lastly in rightlypleasing people, with
arts, or sciences, or any other subject of thought.

I say first in feeding; and, once for all, do not let yourselves be
deceived by any of the common talk of "indiscriminate charity." The

order to us is not to feed the deserving hungry, nor the industrious
hungry, nor the amiable and well-intentioned hungry, but simply to

feed the hungry. It is quite true, infallibly true, that if any man
will not work, neither should he eat--think of that, and every time

you sit down to your dinner, ladies and gentlemen, say solemnly,
before you ask a blessing, "How much work have I done to-day for my

dinner?" But the proper way to enforce that order on those below
you, as well as on yourselves, is not to leave vagabonds and honest

people to starve together, but very distinctly to discern and seize
your vagabond; and shut your vagabond up out of honest people's way,

and very sternly then see that, until he has worked, he does NOT
eat. But the first thing is to be sure you have the food to give;

and, therefore, to enforce the organization of vast activities in
agriculture and in commerce, for the production of the wholesomest

food, and proper storing and distribution of it, so that no famine
shall any more be possible among civilized beings. There is plenty

of work in this business alone, and at once, for any number of
people who like to engage in it.

Secondly, dressing people--that is to say, urging every one, within
reach of your influence to be always neat and clean, and giving them

means of being so. In so far as they absolutely refuse, you must
give up the effort with respect to them, only taking care that no

children within your sphere of influence shall any more be brought
up with such habits; and that every person who is willing to dress

with propriety shall have encouragement to do so. And the first
absolutely necessary step towards this is the gradualadoption of a

consistent dress for different ranks of persons, so that their rank
shall be known by their dress; and the restriction of the changes of

fashion within certain limits. All which appears for the present
quite impossible; but it is only so far even difficult as it is

difficult to conquer our vanity, frivolity, and desire to appear
what we are not. And it is not, nor ever shall be, creed of mine,

that these mean and shallow vices are unconquerable by Christian
women.

And then, thirdly, lodging people, which you may think should have
been put first, but I put it third, because we must feed and clothe

people where we find them, and lodge them afterwards. And providing
lodgment for them means a great deal of vigorouslegislature, and

cutting down of vested interests that stand in the way, and after
that, or before that, so far as we can get it, thoroughsanitary and

remedial action in the houses that we have; and then the building of
more, strongly, beautifully, and in groups of limitedextent, kept

in proportion to their streams, and walled round, so that there may
be no festering and wretchedsuburbanywhere, but clean and busy

street within, and the open country without, with a belt of
beautiful garden and orchard round the walls, so that from any part

of the city perfectly fresh air and grass, and sight of far horizon,
might be reachable in a few minutes' walk. This the final aim; but

in immediate action every minor and possible good to be instantly" target="_blank" title="ad.立即，立刻">instantly
done, when, and as, we can; roofs mended that have holes in them--

fences patched that have gaps in them--walls' buttressed that
totter--and floors propped that shake; cleanliness and order

enforced with our own hands and eyes, till we are breathless, every
day. And all the fine arts will healthily follow. I myself have

washed a flight of stone stairs all down, with bucket and broom, in
a Savoy inn, where they hadn't washed their stairs since they first

went up them; and I never made a better sketch than that afternoon.
These, then, are the three first needs of civilized life; and the

law for every Christian man and woman is, that they shall be in
direct service towards one of these three needs, as far as is

consistent with their own special occupation, and if they have no
special business, then wholly in one of these services. And out of

such exertion in plain duty all other good will come; for in this
direct contention with material evil, you will find out the real