Work is more excellent than idleness; The body's life proceeds not, lacking work. There is a task of holiness to do, Unlike world-binding toil, which bindeth not The faithful soul; such earthly duty do Free from desire, and thou shalt well perform Thy heavenly purpose. Spake Prajapati In the beginning, when all men were made, And, with mankind, the sacrifice--"Do this! Work! Sacrifice! Increase and multiply With sacrifice! This shall be Kamadhuk, Your 'Cow of Plenty', giving back her milk Of all abundance. Worship the gods thereby; The gods shall yield ye grace. Those meats ye crave The gods will grant to Labour, when it pays Tithes in the altar-flame. But if one eats Fruits of the earth, rendering to kindly heaven, No gift of toil, that thief steals from his world." Who eat of food after their sacrifice Are quit of fault, but they that spread a feast All for themselves, eat sin and drink of sin. By food the living live; food comes of rain. And rain comes by the pious sacrifice, And sacrifice is paid with tithes of toil; Thus action is of Brahma, who is one, The Only, All--pervading; at all times Present in sacrifice. He that abstains To help the rolling wheels of this great world, Glutting his idle sense, lives a lost life, Shameful and vain. Work here undoubtedly refers to physical labour, and work by way of sacrifice can only be work to be done by all for the common benefit. Such work--such sacrifice can only be spinning. I do not wish to suggest, that the author of the Divine Song had the spinning wheel in mind. He merely laid down a fundamental principle of conduct. And reading in and applying it to India I can only think of spinning as the fittest and most acceptable sacrificial body labour. I cannot imagine anything nobler or more national than that for say one hour in the day we should all do the labour that the poor must do, and thus identify ourselves with them and through them with all mankind. I cannot imagine better worship of God than that in His name I should labour for the poor even as they do. The spinning wheel spells a more equitable distribution of the riches of the earth. _Y. I.--20th Oct. 1921._ SPINNING AS FAMINE RELIEF Mrs. Jaiji Petit has sent the following notes of an experiment being conducted in spinning among the famine-stricken people at Miri near Ahmednagar. I gladly publish the notes as the experiment is being conducted under the supervision of an Englishwoman. The reader will not fail to observe the methodical manner in which the work is being done. All the difficulties have been met and provided for. Even the very small experiment shows what a potent instrument the spinning wheel is for famine relief. Properly organised it cannot but yield startling results.--M. K. G.