All Things Are Full of Labour
Editor’s Note: What a remarkable man! Professor Odlum was such an influence on others that he inspired them to great heights. Once he learned of the Israel Truth, he traveled extensively, organizing, lecturing and teaching. He was a prolific writer and used his many books, pamphlets, newspaper articles, lectures and sermons to spread the message. His radio program, “The British Israel Hour,” helped lift the blindness of many Israelites and every Sunday evening, he made sure he was at the Bethel Mission preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom and the Israel message, invariably to a large following. He was a sought after speaker by churches right across the country. He was a man of boundless energy, a columnist with the “Vancouver Star” and “Vancouver Sun,” an alderman, president of the Art, Historic and Science Association and a college professor and a businessman. He was the driving force in the organization of this Association in 1909 and was still president when he closed his life in 1932.
SOLOMON so thought that all things were full of labour in the good old Hebrew days. We know that he studied plants, animals, birds, and nature in all her moods, as best he could.
This earnest student life of the Royal Scientist surprises us when we recall the immense buildings he erected, including the Temple, several palaces, walls, pools, aqueducts; and also successfully ruled over “All Israel . “
And all this at a time when he was ruled over by, or ruled over, hundreds of women who had claims upon the Royal Personage. Indeed, he was a very remarkable man to be able to give so much time and ability to the study of nature, including the “cedar of Lebanon, and the hyssop that grew in the city walls.” Few men today have the physical and mental ability to answer to demands so great and insistent.
This wise man, this close observer, concluded and affirmed that “all things are full of labour.”
Was he right? It is worth our while to look around and see the phenomena of nature, small and great, few and many, so far as our limited ability can reach. Where to begin is the question! How to approach the subject
Look at the Plant World
Where ever we turn in the forests, prairies, fields, gardens, along the seashore, or in the seas, we behold that endless kinds of plants on land, in water, or between, are active, always active, always in labour, and never at rest in any real and final sense.
Each plant has its round during its day, whether that day be a week, a month, a year, or long periods of time.
See the acorn, pumpkin seed, or grain of wheat. Look at these seeds in the ground-sprouting, growing into a tree, spreading into a vine, or emerging from its grass-like blades, to produce an oak tree with many acorns; a large pumpkin vine with pumpkins and hundreds of seeds; and an ear of corn filled with golden grains.
Look at these plants sprouting, growing, maturing, reproducing their kind and dying, and in them behold all plants on this round earth.
All are active! All are in labour!
Take a Peep into the Animal World
We need not specify nor amplify here, for, in examining into the plant world as above, we really observe what is, going on in the animal existences. All alike, whether we look at birds, beasts, beetles, fishes or reptiles. We are faced with the same conclusion! All animals labour, and in a very real way “are full of labour.” The robin in springtime comes to her old nest of last year, examines it, repairs it, deposits her eggs, broods over and feeds the little robins, and cares for them until she is ready to start another course with fresh eggs and other little robins.
Then she and her mate prepare to go south as the Frost King’s breath is felt on his journey from the north. Seeking food, rest, shelter, safety, and again coming north to repair her old nest and use it again! Yes, yes , she and her mate are full of labour till they end their life.
As with the robin, so with all birds and all organic life, small and great. It matters not whether we behold the elephant, the hummingbird, the worm or the animal cub, we see them all always active and full of labour.
Look out at the big inorganic World! See the mountains, rocks, gullies, gorges, valleys, vast plains, rushing torrents, still waters, billowy oceans or tempest-tossed seacoasts. We learn and know that this mighty inorganic world is as full of ceaseless activity as are the countless multitudes of beings in the organic world.
We may look at the active volcano, or the apparently quiet mountain slope. In the first case, all is noise, groaning, hissing, upheaving and down tearing. No rest! Ever active! Always full of labour!
So on the mountain slope! Here are the forces of nature at work! Wind, rain, snow, hot sun, the down-pull of gravity, and other forces! Trees, rocks and surface boulders with all movable things grinding and down-sliding towards the valley.
No rest! Always at labour!
Even the mountains are rising, falling, contracting, tilting, and full of labour.
In like manner the members of our solar system are always in toil.
The Minute
We may now look into the atomic and molecular world and see what can be observed therein. We shall try that common inorganic substance known as water. Already we have referred to it in mass, as torrents, rivers and oceans; but now we may examine it as single molecules of hydrogen and oxygen, symbolically written H2O.
Here we see the oxygen holding in its grasp, with wonderfully applied force, the two atoms of hydrogen, while these two atoms of hydrogen are reciprocally and powerfully holding to the oxygen atom. This constant double grip, these powerfully applied forces invisibly interacting, make us know that even the marriage of the oxygen atom to the two hydrogen atoms involves a constant play of forces! Here then we see labour — labour that cannot cease without destroying the very molecule of water.
As with a molecule of water, so with a molecule of granite, marble, quartz, feldspar, slate, and other rock materials.
Later teachings of science tell us that our little atoms, required to form molecules, are themselves composed of countless electrons which are ceaselessly and powerfully active. They exert a constant, a tremendous force, and never weary in their labours. Hence these electrons, atoms, molecules and masses of the inorganic world are always in labour, helping to prove that Solomon pronounced a great scientific truth when he said, “All things are full of labour.”
