258 DECEMBER 



different one, perhaps a lower one, but he does his 

 best to live up to it. He has made a religion of his 

 own, suited to his workaday life with its limitations 

 and temptations, and through this religion, inade- 

 quate as we may be inclined to regard it, he finds 

 himself enabled to 



" Move upward, working out the beast, 

 And let the ape and tiger die." 



People are very fond of talking about the "good 

 old days." For my part, I confess myself no lauder 

 of the acted time, and I don't believe there ever 

 were any good old days. The days when men were 

 young seem good to them in retrospect, and that is 

 probably the extent of it. In the country we read 

 much in our daily newspapers, which come from 

 London, about the agricultural depression, but the 

 dweller in the wilderness is forced to admit that 

 this depression is not visible to the naked eye. The 

 occupier, at any rate, whether farmer or labourer, is 

 as flourishing as he chooses to be, though the actual 

 owner of the land is obliged to deny himself many 

 luxuries that were formerly his. As he is in a 

 minority, however, he gets but scant attention paid 

 to his impoverished condition, and, taken as a whole, 

 the days are better for the dweller on the land than 

 they ever before have been. But there were 

 certainly times when men in country places enjoyed 

 life more boisterously than they do now. If we 

 have anything to regret of the customs left behind 

 us in past ages, it is the games, the sports, which 

 gave life to the village green. Of these games not 

 one exists here at the present day, and the sole 



