During their forty years’ exile in the desert the Israelites were supported by the expectation of the Promised Land flowing with milk and honey. The same promise has often been made in our own day to the pale-faced city clerk and all city dwellers in their desert of papers and figures. A factory-ridden people is encouraged to return to the land, for it is said to be the only life fit for man. They are in bondage; they need the freedom of the soil, out in the spacious fields. The children of the Father of heaven are free; so, we are told, are the children of mother earth—in fact, we are almost led to imagine the two sets of offspring to be identical. Satan invented the machine to lash mankind in bondage. God means his sons to be free, following the furrow of the plough.

Freedom is not, however, the only advantage attributed to this form of life, for to freedom they add all the joys of living. The delight of hard muscular toil will be followed by relaxation in a comfortable chair before a glowing hearth with one’s children gathering round quiet and content. Is not Nature the kindest of mothers, and is there anything to compare for sheer delight with daily toil in the brown earth among the gentle beasts placed at man’s service? These are the fruits taken by the spies from the promised land.

This pleasant picture, however, remains little more than an imaginative one, having little resemblance to reality. It might even be a snare for the young romantic who does not care much for rational explanations.