The subject of work and working hours is occupying so large a place now in the world's regard that every one is obliged, willy-nilly, to pay some attention to the matter. Hitherto it has been part of the accepted state of things that there should be a working class and a leisured class, and the majority have been content to leave it at that, but such a condition of nonchalance is no longer possible, and for many reasons a large number of persons, not without surprise, find themselves not only having to think about it but actually having to do work that had formerly been done for them. What is still more of a surprise to many is that once having learned the joy of work, they dread returning to their prewar state of idleness or leisure.

Now in the first place, what is this thing called work, and why is there such a tremendous upheaval about it today? Work is the energy of production, and the reason of the trouble about it to-day is that the carnal mind, or mortal mind, as Mrs. Eddy calls it, has misunderstood and misinterpreted the nature of work, just as it has misinterpreted everything else in human experience. Instead of work being considered the privilege of every human being, the whole question has been debased on to the plane of drudgery, and we have the melancholy pictures of slaves and bondmen and misery and depression all down the ages until this hour. Now, however, through the action of the spiritual idea, or Christ, everything existing in consciousness is being forced into the light for the purpose of readjustment, and that the readjustment of this particular thing, work, is part of the trouble foretold by Jesus as a necessary purging before the second coming off the Son of man, there can be no doubt when we see, as we are forced to, that it touches the very foundations of human society.

That work, or the energy of production, is a normal condition and need of the average human being, is evident, for if one leaves a child of four or five years old to amuse himself, in a few minutes he will be making a train, or a cart, or a motor car, out of an old box and a bit of string, and be busy inventing imaginary wheels and levers for any length of time. A child dislikes being idle more than anything else in the world, and is always asking for "something to do." The story of the woman whose idea of heaven was "a place where one would do nothing for ever and ever," only serves to show how entirely perverted the idea of work has become by custom.

Originally, of course, every primitive man had to work in order to live; but gradually, we must suppose, one who proved to be more energetic or fearless than others, accumulated possessions and gradually let the devil of indolence mesmerize him into paying others to do his work for him, and so the whole of our present civilzation with its overwork and underpay, or underwork and overpay, as the case may be, its classes and masses, has crushed out the natural wholesome instincts with a superstructure of false values.

In the allegory of Genesis, when the man had eaten of the forbidden fruit, the curse and consequence of his sin was not that he would have to work for his bread, but that his toil would end in dust, nothingness, death. As the Preacher subsequently found, all his labor in which he labored proved to be vanity. Is not that really the trouble in the labor world to-day,—not that men dislike work, but that the fact of the vanity of it all, the drudgery, the monotony of all this materialistic labor, has been recognized in all its nakedness, and finally, the turning of all this labor by work ing men to the destruction of millions of other working men has caused a reaction which is finding its inevitable expression?

In every newspaper almost we find proposed remedies for labor problems. Christian Science, however, knows but one, that is, a wider, a universal understanding of Principle. On page 340 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy writes, "One infinite God, good, unifies men and nations; constitutes the brotherhood of man; ends wars; fulfills the Scripture, 'Love thy neighbor as thyself;' annihilates pagan and Christian idolatry,—whatever is wrong in social, civil, criminal, poltical, and religious codes; equalizes the sexes; annuls the curse on man, and leaves nothing that can sin, suffer, be punished or destroyed." This is only another way of expressing what Jesus said when he gave the two great commandments as being love of God and love for man. There are many working men, even now, who are practicing Christianly scientific application of this golden rule to their labor problems, and finding that as they put self on one side and look not to man or to matter for the reward of their work, but to Principle or Mind, envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness fall away from their experience, their work ceases to be drudgery, their conditions improve, and they become free men in the best sense of the word, for they are living in obedience to that law which means freedom. "God rests in action. Imparting has not impoverished, can never impoverish the divine Mind. No exhaustion follows the action of this Mind, according to the apprehension of divine Science" (Science and Health, p. 519). Ther can be no inaction in the divine Mind; it must be eternally producing ideas. It is, in its essence, the energy of production, and man is the likeness of this Mind. Idleness is stagnation, death.

The apostle James knew something of these troubles conditions when he wrote: "Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace."

So long as men believe that they can cure injustice by injustice, that they can enrich Peter by robbing Paul, so long will there be confusion and every evil work; but the moment they allow Mind, Principle, to hold the control, and work through love, and not through hate, at that moment they will begin individually, and therefore collectively, to reap the fruit of righteousness, in peace, health, abundance, and freedom.