Consider to-day the CHEERFUL side of conditions on earth.
Every human being has his troubles and worries. The luckiest of
us all yearns for what cannot be had, and sees much to regret.
But one splendid fact should always be borne in mind: THE
PROGRESS OF HUMANITY IS INCESSANT. WE ARE INFINITELY BETTER OFF
NOW THAN WE HAVE BEEN BEFORE ON THIS EARTH, AND UNLIMITED
POSSIBILITIES OF IMPROVEMENT ARE AHEAD OF US.
The progress of humanity has been like that of an individual
climbing the paths of a steep mountain. At every turn there are
fresh dangers and difficulties to be overcome, fresh
complications for which the traveler is prepared only by his
courage and determination.
But every step takes the traveler higher up, out of the dark
valley, toward the light at the top, and every danger overcome
makes it easier to deal with the dangers to follow.
In its long fight the human race has encountered many enemies.
At one time in Europe one single epidemic destroyed half of
all the population. But we have struggled on; through science we
have almost conquered disease, and the plagues of the past are
unknown among us.
In olden times brutal superstition, disguised as religion,
dwarfed men's minds, punishing, with atrocious cruelty, the crime
of independent thought and apparently making impossible any
mental growth in the face of bigotry and monstrous persecutions.
But to-day bigotry begins to give place to true religion; the
burning alive and protracted torture which disgraced all the
religions of Europe until recently have ceased, probably forever.
Mankind in its travels has progressed as far as the stage of
independent thought. If a creature still lives that would take
the life of another because that other thinks differently from
himself he dares not confess his criminal thought.
A few centuries ago the great majority of all human beings were
slaves or serfs. The noblest of human brains, those of the Greek
philosophers, wrote and lived in the midst of slavery. Even as
great a man as Aristotle could not conceive a society based on a
non-slave-holding system.
But except in some African jungle, here and there among savage
and semi-savage races, no man is a slave now. And where slavery
does exist it exists in stagnant pools of humanity, and it exists
side by side with the other monsters, cruel superstition and
widespread disease, that progressive humanity has left behind.
----
Every century of which the history has been preserved shows us
its horrid side of life, its cruelties, its sufferings without
number. But each succeeding century shows also some one point
gained, some one hideous feature of life eliminated.
The enemy of the world to-day, the monster in the path of
progress, is organized greed, the insane desire of a few men to
take from others, and for themselves, what they do not need.
The trust, seeking through capital to reintroduce slavery under
another form, and to establish the tyranny of money in place of
the tyranny of swords and bullets, represents the present
problem.
This problem, like all the others, will be solved in its turn.
It will be found that the great danger did good as well as harm,
and that, on its overthrow, only good was left behind it.
The diseases that once destroyed men forced them to live a decent
life of cleanliness. Those diseases frightened human beings out
of filth into respect for themselves as the rulers of the world.
We owe the cleanness and decent temperate living of to-day, as
well as our knowledge of medical science, to the diseases that
formerly destroyed the people.
The hideous travesties called religion which relied for their
power on superstition, fire and sword appeared to block all
spiritual development among men. These religions have passed
away; only the vital, true religious principle is left--the
command laid upon men to feel toward each other as brothers, to
worship the ONE and benevolent power that rules the world.
A few years or centuries from now the trust problem will be
solved, and that particular monster will lie dead on its ledge of
rock back in the pages of history. And men will know that to the
great danger and brutality of to-day they owe much of their
progress and happiness.
When the trust goes commercial greed will go with it. It will
have killed the hideous theory of competition, with its swindling
of the public, its cutting of wages, its general mean, petty,
treacherous tradesmen's warfare. ----
Every human being should read history intelligently, if only for
the encouraging effect on the mind.
In every direction, and in spite of foolish croakers, the human
race has improved.
Good men and women deplore the drunkenness of to-day, and they do
right. But for their own satisfaction and encouragement they
should know that in comparison with former times the drunkenness
of to-day amounts to nothing.
Where one man drinks too much in these days, a thousand men and a
thousand women were frightfully drunk a few years ago.
Drunkenness, which formerly attacked the most useful of human
beings--doctors, statesmen, poets, the best mechanics--is
confined now to a feeble fragment of humanity made weak by
disease, hereditary influence, discouragement or imperfect
organization.
More important than this encouraging development is the changed
attitude of the public mind toward the drinking habit.
Twenty-five centuries ago a Greek philosopher, to make heaven
attractive, described the table at which heroes sat in a
never-ending, blissful state of drunkenness.
To-day even the meanest man is ashamed to have it known that he
is drunk, and the most hopeless drunkard would ask no greater
favor than that some one should make it impossible for him ever
to drink again.
There is a criminal conspiracy, called the Beef Trust, which
thrives on the needs and privations of the whole people. It is a
blot on humanity. Do what you can to destroy this evil. But do
not be made bitter by it. Your age is a happier one than others.
In France, not so long ago, human beings were punished for eating
the bodies of men that had died of the plague, and strict laws
were issued to stop that kind of cannibalism. The Beef Trust age
is an improvement on that age, is it not? High prices are
bad, but not as bad as hideous, widespread starvation. ----
Human selfishness and heartlessness are criticised to-day, and
the criticism is just. Yet, MORALLY, the human race has
improved more than in any other way.
We see to-day callous, heartless men spending millions upon their
personal pleasures, paving insufficiently the laborers whose work
enriches them, and robbing the public whose patience makes the
great fortunes possible.
But the worst plutocrat of to-day is an angel compared with the
mildly vicious men of olden times.
Your selfish man to-day only asks for a yacht and some race
horses, mild forms of dissipation. A thousand years ago the
vicious man demanded and exercised the power of life and death
over those who surrounded him, and his mildest fit of irritation
cost the life of some helpless human being.
Men are ill-paid to-day, but their condition is Paradise compared
to the slavery of their predecessors. ----
You should daily criticise yourself and others, and do what you
can in your little sphere as preacher, politician, editor or
private individual to help along humanity's progress.
But remember always for your encouragement that the world is
improving steadily. It never stands still; it never goes
backward. And there are no limits to our future improvement,
thanks to our inborn love of what is right and to the steady
influence of EDUCATION.