Article December 12, 1925 Issue

Signs of the Times

with contributions from E. G. D. Freeman, Clarence Reed, D. William Brown, M. Ashby Jones, Alexander MacColl

[E. G. D. Freeman, in the Presbyterian Witness, Toronto, Ontario, Canada]

Both work and leisure are essential to the best living, but the problem of keeping a proper balance as between toil and rest is one of the very difficult problems of living . . . and one of the oldest. To have no leisure is to be in a dangerous way. It seems to exchange freedom for bondage, and to cease to be master of life. It is good to be busy. It is a blessing to have loads of work crowded upon us. But the moment we get to the place where we feel that our work is getting the better of us, that it is just ordering us around and making us jump, and that we are helpless under the driving urge of it, we are in danger. There is a vast difference between a man having a great deal of work to do and the work he has to do having him. For the sake of the best results in our work, we need leisure. We need time to think. Thought and action are both necessary to progress, and if we neglect thought, our work becomes mere routine. . . . In business life, in home life, in social activities, in church connections, and throughout all life's different spheres of active interest, there is great need for quiet, sustained, and critical thought. . . . The oldest man in Manitoba, a man with something over one hundred years of life behind him, was delivering a short address on the radio. He was asked among other things to give a good rule for long life. His reply was simple, "Work hard, and keep the Sabbath day." Work and leisure rightly balanced hold the secret of achievement. The Sabbath law, like every other law of God, is written not only in the Bible but in human nature.

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