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some minds an air of sentimentalism pervades the whole labor problem, as though the millennium only waited upon large wages and short hours. The old-time love for one's work and the old-time pride in it as one's best reason for existence have yet to find any wide-spread and active propaganda in the conventions of labor. So far as we have observed, no labor leader has taken upon himself the conservative office of preaching to his followers the virtue of good work well done, not only as a duty to the employer, but as a service and inspiration to the workingman himself. The theories even of those who lead most wisely aim at the elevation of the individual through the class rather than the reverse. The general trend of the workingman seems to be away from hard work and good work. It is time that there was less preaching of rights and more of duties. Perhaps it would be easier to get the rights by a little more conscientious devotion to the duties.

As a matter of fact, and not of theory, no man can do a worse service to another, whether rich or poor, than to deprive him of the absolutely healthful joy which there is in hard work. Woe to him who does not like his daily work; for if one cannot have the work he likes, he would better learn to like the work he has. Polonius was right:

That there is much discontent with work among the so-called middle classes in America is due in large part to the pampering of children, to the supplying of their natural and artificial wants, and to the sentimental idea that " their day of toil will come soon enough." In general, work is not a curse, but a blessing-a positive means of grace. One can hardly begin too early to impress upon children lessons of self-help by tasks appropriate to their age and forces, and to beget in them scorn of idleness and of dependence on others. To do this is to make them happy through the self-respect that comes with the realization of power, and thus to approximate Tennyson's goal of man: "Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control."

One consideration that is making our people impatient of hard work is the example of quickly made riches through the semi-gambling activities. Men whose fathers would have died rather than live on bread they had not earned find themselves willing to be taken care of, by the government perhaps, or by "the party," or by their more fortunate or industrious relatives. Such drones know nothing of the satisfaction of him who "scorns delights and lives laborious days," who can hold his head high and say he has earned his right to live, and whose death is thus not a debt

"No profit comes where is no pleasure ta'en." paid to nature, for he owes her nothing.

OPEN LETTERS

Verses of Amos R. Wells 1

T is not every day that God is drawn into

not man." It is not the teaching of Christian Science that "there is no matter," "there is no sin," and "there is no pain," unless these statements are qualified by the understanding that such statements refer to the real universe and the real man, created and controlled by God, whom the Founder of Christianity declared to be "Spirit" (St. John iv. 24).

Science is pushed to strange shifts and does not hesitate to commit even so great a breach. These verses that try to jest about God pervert the teachings of Christian Science and are capable of deceiving the ignorant who may desire to know. It is not the teaching of Christian Science that "God is I, and I am God"; on the contrary, the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures," by Mary Baker G. Eddy, states categorically: "Man is not God, and God is 1"The Wanderings of a Bewildered Soul in the Mazes of Christian Science," in the July CENTURY.

The nature of God and man and the universe is not a joke. Sin and pain are not amusing, but if a method of destroying both has been discovered which explains their nature as metaphysically unreal, that is, indeed, a cause for great joy, praise, and thanksgiving, and evokes love and gratitude from the thousands

who have been healed, reformed, and blessed by it.

Christian Scientists shrink from criticizing persons, and will be glad to hear from Mr. Wells that his attempted jest was not about God; but as the verses appeared in the department of THE CENTURY entitled "In Lighter Vein," as the verses themselves certainly had a humorous turn, and as the name of God appeared in almost every one of his eleven verses, it must be conceded that the charge was not unfounded.

W. D. McCrackan.

REJOINDER BY MR. WELLS

My verses are not a "jest about God," they are a jest about Christian Science; and the terms are not synonymous, at least in my mind.

To be sure, Mrs. Eddy does say ("Science and Health," page 480, line 19), "Man is not God, and God is not man." One can find in

the book any arrangement of words on those subjects. But this statement is contradicted a thousand times, as I might show by many quotations.

If it is not the absolute and unqualified teaching of Christian Science that there is no matter, no sin, and no pain, but only an empty mirage of these things, Christian Science has no teaching at all. Probably there are not twenty pages out of the "text-book's " seven hundred that do not explicitly deny the real existence of matter, sin, and pain.

It would indeed, as your correspondent says, be a matter for joy, not for jesting, if a sovereign remedy for sin and sickness had been discovered; but when a set of solemn teachers shut their eyes and bid us be at ease regarding these evils because they do not see them, sober and sensible folk are inclined to think that a jest has been perpetrated, and not by themselves.

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The Hospital Fair

E nearly made the round of the tables,

Handwas fifteen or twenty dollars poorer than

when he came in, though of course that was a detail. He owned a large pincushion, a nutcake, a packet of colored tissue shaving-paper, a three-pound box of fudge at a dollar a pound, a hand-painted wall-calendar, a cardboard scrap-basket tied with ribbons, an embroidered tobacco-pouch, and a huge bunch of roses. And he was trying to carry all these things, for they don't "send" at a hospital fair. Her table was nearly the last in the line, and she laughed outright when she saw him. "Hallo!" he said, his eyes brightening as he came up to her. "Where's your megaphone?"

"Oh, I don't spiel," she laughed. "I leave that for the girls at the other tables."

"They know the art," he said ruefully. "It's done in better form than it is on the Midways, but just as effectively."

"I should judge so," she returned, with a survey of his laden arms.

"May n't I drop this armful behind your table and leave it there?" he pleaded. "You won't have to tell."

She shook her head. "Everything bought has to be carried away. It's the penalty for buying."

"Then there are two penalties!"
"What's the other?"

"The price. And two against one is no fair."
She laughed again.

"It 's hospital fair," she retorted.
"Hospital fare is n't good."

"It is at our hospital.-A housewife, did you say?" She turned swiftly to a new customer, a portly lady in purple. "Yes, we have them. Here's a pretty one at two dollars and a quarter. Oh, yes, I can make change. Thank you."

"They did n't make change at the other tables," he said, as she returned. "You mean they would n't." "They said they could n't." "They meant they should n't." "Let me put these things down," he begged. "Will you take them up again by and by?" "All but the roses. They 're for you." "Oh, thank you. But you 'll take the other things?"

"If I don't forget."

"I'll remind you." "Thanks." He deposited his burden behind the table. "What do you sell?"

"Sewing-things. Housewives, for instance." "I thought housewives were out of date." "They 're coming in again."

"Are all these at two dollars and a quarter?"

"Oh, no. There are several over two dollars and a quarter."

"I need one at some price," he said. "Laundries are poor hands at mending."

She picked up one in colored floss.
"This is three dollars and a half."
"I want something dearer than that."
She glanced at him.

"Well, here's one at five dollars."

"Dearer still." His eyes were fixed on her face. She felt it flush brilliantly.

"This at six dollars is the most expensive I 've got."

"I want to pay more."

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"I've told you already."

She did not deny this. There was a light in her eyes too.

"There 's another customer," she said. "Never mind the customer. Tell me." "But I can't neglect customers. How would the hospital fare?"

"I'm more interested in how I fare at the hospital fair."

"Well," she whispered, as she flashed away, "possibly I might sometime let you have one a little-dearer-even than the ones they sell at a hospital fair."

Edwin Asa Dix.

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TOUCAN: What's the matter, Sam? You look nettled.

SLOTH: I am. This is my wife's cleaning day, and she's got the whole household turned upside down.

THE DE VINNE PRESS, NEW YORK

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