backward. We should
not very readily agree nowadays to the abolition of telegrams or to a
regulation compelling express trains to stop at every station! We can't
ALL go to Nursing Homes, or afford to enjoy a winter's rest-cure in
Egypt. And, if not, is the speeding-up process to go on indefinitely,
incapable of being checked, and destined ultimately to land civilization
in the mad-house?

It is, I say, a serious and an urgent problem. And it is, I think,
forcing a certain answer on us--which I will now endeavor to explain.

If we cannot turn back and reverse this fatal onrush of modern life (and
it is evident that we cannot do so in any very brief time--though of
course ultimately we might succeed) then I think there are clearly only
two alternatives left--either to go forward to general dislocation and
madness, or--to learn to rest even in the very midst of the hurry and
the scurry.

To explain what I mean, let me use an illustration. The typhoons and
cyclones of the China Seas are some of the most formidable storms that
ships can encounter. Their paths in the past have been strewn with
wrecks and disaster. But now with increased knowledge much of their
danger has been averted. It is known that they are CIRCULAR in
character, and that though the wind on their outskirts often reaches a
speed of 100 miles an hour, in the centre of the storm there is a
space of complete calm--not a calm of the SEA certainly, but a complete
absence of wind. The skilled navigator, if he cannot escape the storm,
steers right into the heart of it, and rests there. Even in the midst
of the clatter he finds a place of quiet where he can trim his sails
and adjust his future course. He knows too from his position in what
direction at every point around him the wind is moving and where it will
strike him when at last his ship emerges from the charmed circle.

Is it not possible, we may ask, that in the very midst of the cyclone of
daily life we may find a similar resting-place? If we can, our case is
by no means hopeless. If we cannot, then indeed there is danger.

Looking back in History we seem to see that in old times people took
life much more leisurely than they do now. The elder generations gave
more scope in their customs and their religions for contentment and
peace of mind. We associate a certain quietism and passivity with the
thought of the Eastern peoples. But as civilization traveled Westward
external activity and the pace of lif