Walk in the light while ye have light Author:Leo Tolstoy Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: n. GOD'S WOEK What do I do when I want to change a bristle into a cobbler's thread ? How do I treat these articles ? With the greatest attention, car... more »e, tenderness, almost love. What does the watchmaker do as he puts together a watch, if he is a master and indeed knows how to make a watch ? All his fingers are busy: some of them hold a wheel; others place an axle in position, and others again move up a peg. All this he does softly, tenderly. He knows that if he rudely sticks one thing into another, and even if he presses a little too hard on one part, forgetting another part, the whole will go to pieces, and that he had better not attend to this matter, if he cannot devote all his forces to it. I say all this for this purpose: At first people live not knowing why; they live only for their enjoyment, which takes the place of their question, " What for ?" but later there comes a time for every rational being, when it asks " What for ?" and receives that answer which Christ gave and which we all know, " To do God's work." Is it possible God's work is less important, or less complicated, than bristles or a watch ? Is it possible God's work may be done at haphazard, and all come out right ? In a watch one cannot press too hard upon a part needed; but the defenders of the worldly life say, " What is the use of being finical: if a thing does not fit in, bang it with the hammer, and it will go in." It does not matter to them that the rest will all be flattened. They do not see this. It is impossible to work over a watch without giving it full attention and, so to speak, love for all its parts. Is it possible that one may do God's work in such a way ? It is all very well for a man to do God's work at haphazard (that is, not to live in love with his bro...« less