taskwork

And such books as these were part of his spiritual taskwork.

From William Blake A Critical Essay by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Those at taskwork had fivepence, and in some cases as low as threepence per diem.

From The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) With Notices of Earlier Irish Famines by John O'Rourke

For most men in a brazen prison live, Where, in the sun's hot eye, With heads bent o'er their toil, they languidly   40Their lives to some unmeaning taskwork give, Dreaming of nought beyond their prison-wall.

From Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems by Matthew Arnold

But I have a taskwork to accomplish—one, I think, which God, by fitting me thereto, has pointed out as mine.

From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. by Various

Of course, if the parents are not devout, sincere, and affectionate,—if the whole affair on both sides is taskwork, or worse, hypocritical and false,—results must be very different indeed!

From The Story of John G. Paton Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals by James Paton