Religion: Words & Works

¶Up to 5,000 years ago man's work—agriculture—was part of his religion, says Historian Arnold J. Toynbee, and man has been trying to get back to that happy state ever since. Speaking to the 250 members of a "Church and Work Congress" of the Episcopal Diocese of Albany, N.Y., Professor Toynbee cited two major Christian efforts to reconsecrate work—the Benedictine Rule and the Puritan way of life. "The problem as I see it," he said, "is to keep our work, when once we have consecrated it, in that subordinate relation to our religion to which the very act of consecration has dedicated...