GOSPEL OF RELAXATION. 283 



pass over. In brief, I may say that wo have had 

 somewhat too much of 'the gospel of work/ It is 

 time to preach the.gospel of relaxation. 



" This is a very unconventional after dinner speech. 

 Especially it will he thought strange that in return- 

 ing thanks I should deliver something very much like 

 a homily. But I have thought that I could not bet- 

 ter convey my thanks than by the expression of a 

 sympathy which issues in a fear. If, as I gather, 

 this intemperance in work affects more especially the 

 Anglo American part of the population if there re- 

 sults an undermining of the physique, not only in 

 adults, but also in the young, who, as I learn from 

 your daily journals, are also being injured by over- 

 work if the ultimate consequence should be a 

 dwindling away of those among you who are the in- 

 heritors of free institutions and best adapted to them ; 

 then there will come a further difficulty in the work- 

 ing out of that great future which lies before the 

 American nation. To my anxiety on this account 

 you must please ascribe the unusual character of my 

 remarks." 



If what Mr. Spencer had seen and heard among the 

 class in which he had moved, and to whom he was 

 talking, had forced on him the belief that their per- 

 sistent activity had reached an extreme from which 

 there must begin a counterchange a reaction; if 

 everywhere he had been struck with the number of 

 faces which told in strong lines of the burdens that 

 had to be borne ; if among that class he had also been 

 struck with the large proportion of gray haired men ; 



