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The sentence which must have seemed to Adam a curse, "In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread," has been turned by God into a blessing. The elements of Adam's doom are the materials of human happiness. Heaven is made out of the ruins of the fall. What a world this would be without work! What a weariness! What a hot bed of every bad passion! What a torment!

I. EVERY LIVING CREATURE HAS ITS OWN PROPER WORK. It matches with each man's natural endowment and his spiritual attainment. It is what suits him: neither too little nor too much. Enough to engage, and occupy, and draw out all his powers; and yet not so much as to injure or distress them. Take pains to ascertain whether the work you are engaged in is really yours — the work God would have you to do. To settle that satisfactorily, the following conditions must be fulfilled:

1. There must be the vocation of the heart — conscience and spiritual conviction telling you, after prayer and thought, that you are called to it.

2. The vocation of circumstances — your position and means being suited, and your education and habit of mind accommodated to it.

3. The vocation of the Church — the advice and judgment of pious friends who are in a position to offer an unprejudiced opinion on the subject. If these three things unite, you may be sure that, though you are directed to it by human agencies, the work is really allotted to you by God.

II. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE ONLY FOR DOING THE WORK, NOT FOR THE RESULTS. The work is yours, but the issue is God's. Leave that to Him. Do you work with faith — for faith is confidence, and confidence is calmness, and calmness is power, and power is success, and success is God's glory.

(J. Vaughan, M. A.)

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KJV: For the Son of man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch.

WEB: "It is like a man, traveling to another country, having left his house, and given authority to his servants, and to each one his work, and also commanded the doorkeeper to keep watch.