Industry, Legend of
A hermit learns that active work is necessary alongside prayer and contemplation.
Some centuries ago, a man resident in Egypt became a convert to the Christian faith. The spirit of the times favored asceticism; and he, being of a contemplative mind, conceived the unnatural idea, that if he could retire from society, and spend his time in contemplation, he should attain to the perfection of human happiness on earth. Filled with this thought, he bade adieu to the abodes of men, wandered far into the desert, selected a cave near which flowed a spring, for his home, and, subsisting on the scanty crops of roots and herbs which sprang up spontaneously in the adjacent glens and valleys, began his life of meditation and prayer. He had not spent many seasons in his hermitage before his heart grew miserable beyond endurance. The long and weary hours of the day, and the dreary, interminable nights, oppressed and crushed his listless soul. In the extremity of his wretchedness, he fell upon his face, and cried, "Father, call home thy child! Let me die! I am weary of life." Thus stricken with grief, he fell asleep; and, in his vision, an angel stood before him, and spake, saying, "Cut down the palm-tree that grows by yon spring, and of its fibres construct a rope." The vision passed away; and the hermit awoke with a resolution to fulfil his mission. But he had no axe, and therefore journeyed far to procure one. On his return, he felled the tree, and diligently labored till its fibres lay at his feet, formed into a coil of rope. Again the angel stood before him, and said, "Dominic, you are now no longer weary of life, but you are happy. Know, then, that man was made for labor, and that prayer also is his duty. Both are essential to his happiness. Go, therefore, into the world, with the rope girded upon thy loins. Let it be a memorial to thee of what God expects from man." Dr. Wise.