First, overwork. We all live too fast, and work too hard. "All
things are full of labour, man cannot utter it." In the heavy
struggle for existence which goes on all around us, each man is
tasked more and more--if he be really worth buying and using--to
the utmost of his powers all day long. The weak have to compete
on equal terms with the strong; and crave, in consequence, for
artificial strength. How we shall stop that I know not, while
every man is "making haste to be rich, and piercing himself
through with many sorrows, and falling into foolish and hurtful
lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition." How we
shall stop that, I say, I know not. The old prophet may have been
right when he said: "Surely it is not of the Lord that the people
shall labour in the very fire, and weary themselves for very
vanity;" and in some juster, wiser, more sober system of society--
somewhat more like the Kingdom of The Father come on earth--it may
be that poor human beings will not need to toil so hard, and to
keep themselves up to their work by stimulants, but will have time
to sit down, and look around them, and think of God, and God's
quiet universe, with something of quiet in themselves; something
of rational leisure, and manful sobriety of mind, as well as of
body.

But it seems to me also, that in such a state of society, when--as
it was once well put--"every one has stopped running about like
rats:"--that those who work hard, whether with muscle or with
brain, would not be surrounded, as now, with every circumstance
which tempts toward drink; by every circumstance which depresses
the vital energies, and leaves them an easy prey to pestilence
itself; by bad light, bad air, bad food, bad water, bad smells,