It is for this that they blow the bellows and swing the heavy hammers from morn until night.
It is for this they buy and sell and buy again to sell again.
It is for this that men will spend years of toil in schools and colleges, burning the midnight lamp till the eye is heavy and the brain is tired.
It is for this that they will leave wife and children to try their fortunes in some distant California or Australia.
It is for this they will abandon their homes in time of war to brave the dangers of the battle-field.
It is for this that they will worry away the hours of night in games to get each other's money.
It is for this they will devise schemes and lay plans to entrap their fellows, some times going to the length of committing murder.
It is for this that women will toil with the needle and bend over the sewing machine.
It is for this they will stand for weary hours behind counters measuring off goods or waiting for customers to buy.
It is for this that they work over the hot stove or wear out their hands in the wash-tub.
Yes, it is for this that some of them, weary of work-life, will venture on the slippery paths of pleasure, turn their thoughts toward the gilded chambers of licentiousness, sell virtue and abandon home and family to go in the ways that in the end take hold on death and hell.
We are a race of _toilers_. All over the world it is the same. We see it here in Louisville, It is work, work, work, go, go, go.
But not only are we toiling, some in one way, some in another; some by innocent means, some by wicked means; some by what does no harm to ourselves or our neighbor, and some by what does harm to both, in order to obtain rest and happiness; it is also true that most of us are heavy laden, oppressed and saddened beneath burdens that we can not shake off, can not get rid of.
Some of us are bowed down under our poverty. No good house to live in, no comfortable home to turn into after the battles and toils of outside life, no comfortable shelter for our families. No assurance as to where we are to get to-morrow's bread. No comfortable and respectable clothes to wear, and, of course, no friends. For when a poor fellow gets poor and shabby, his friends drop off and pass by on the other side. No friends, none of that sympathy and communion of friendship which all human hearts so crave and which they find to be the best part of what this life can give.