“All honor to you, my son. But you will learn that what you have done is only one of those noble experiments. However, in the end, mankind will benefit, and you will learn much.”

In vague disquiet, the God addressed the Great One, “These people had not sufficient means to produce all they needed for shelter, comfort, nutriment or joy. I have placed at their service the spirits of earth, water, air and fire, and have given them the servants of the gods to hold as willing slaves. Never again need they lack any material comfort. Can I do more?”

The Great One smiled, but remained silent, and the God saluted and returned to His own place.

MANY years passed, which to a god are but as so many breaths. When He felt that His angels had had the time to accomplish their work, He determined to revisit the island, and behold the happiness of a people who had been enabled to produce more than enough for every single inhabitant and for every guest.

Descending slowly, he paused in the ether, at a distance from which He could view the island as a whole. But what a sight met His startled eyes! Instead of the comfort, happiness, peace and plenty He had pictured, He saw on every side, want, woe, strife, pestilence and hardship. The island dwellers, who were not fighting each other for the means of subsistence, were on their knees in prayer, and these prayers had a strangely familiar refrain. “Oh Lord, grant us freedom from our poverty. Most of us are hungry and cold, and even the most fortunate ones are so immersed in the economic struggle, that they have no time to cultivate Thy graces or Thy love.”

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