“I remember I used to hear our preachers in their public prayers ask God that every form of vice and crime might be banished from the earth, and that the time might come when there should be no more sin, but only love and beauty and happiness. I have heard such prayers a hundred times, and never thought much about them. But now I am forced to think, and it seems to me that these prayers would not be made continually unless there were a hope and expectation in the minds of religious people that they would some time be answered. It is not for me to assume that such a hope is unreasonable, drawn as it is from the book which so many believe is the word of God.” I rejoiced to hear my friend talk in this way, but it seemed very odd that he should be preaching my own doctrine to me. I had had the same thoughts, and had been trying to find the right time to offer them to the doctor. I am sure I was thankful that he was coming to such views without a word from me, for he would probably be much more apt to hold to them. The foregoing conversation was in the evening, and the next morning we were all sitting comfortably in the music room, when Thorwald said: “The other day I began to give you some orderly account of our history, but you see how it has been broken into by the relation of different phases, in answer to your questions. It seems to me now that it will be more interesting to you if I continue in the same way and take up one subject at a time. And now that we have a little time before us, I wish you would suggest some point upon which you would like to have me talk; that is, if it is agreeable to you.” To which the doctor replied: “I like your plan very much and I am sure we both have plenty of questions which will keep you supplied with topics. I have desired for some time to ask you about your industrial system. I can see how electricity has relieved you of the most arduous labor, but there must remain much disagreeable work, as we would call it, to be done with the hand. In our busy life there are a thousand such tasks, which I cannot conceive of being performed by machinery, many of them hard only because they are monotonous and awake no interest or enthusiasm in the performer. Men and women are continually wearing themselves out with such work. You must have abolished all that, if everybody here is comfortable and happy. I am very anxious to hear how it has been done.” “In answering your question,” Thorwald began, “let me say, first, that I presume we have learned to employ machines in a great many ways which to you would seem incomprehensible. The drudgery and much of the monotony of labor have been removed, as well as its severity. But still, as you surmise, there is plenty of work for all. Our higher civilization does not require less work than yours, but rather more and of greater variety. It is all done quietly, however, without friction or any of the unpleasant features of former times.