The "dreamer" who passes through this life, satisfied with the
creations of his own fancy, adds nothing to the practical needs or
demands of his day and time. In all the years and ages of the
intellective life of the planet, such men and women have lived and
walked their little round atween the two oceans which bound the shores
of birth and death.
But a truer concept of the meanings of an earthly existence has arisen
in the minds of gifted humanity. The cloister gives way to the open
court; the inspired ones are seeking the roads which may lead out from
hazy, unproven cloud-land into the brightness of the everyday,
practical life which the world must have experience of, along all
lines, among all classes, high and low, ignorant and learned, ere it
can dislodge the incubus of superstition, and undevelopment under which
it has staggered along, through devious ways of despair and unbelief,
to awaken at last to a realization of the final destiny of humanity.
To the average mind the far-off, unascertained and dim, is what is most
attractive. Sending missionaries to the so-called "heathen," or
speculating upon the social conditions of people supposed to be living
on other planets, is of vital interest to their soaring minds. Any
amount of money and good red blood of humanity, if need be, are not too
large a price to pay for the gratification of these projects of
unsatisfied mentality. The vast body politic, the struggling, seething
masses of humanity grope and dig along their appointed ways, and the
progress of the entire race of man toward an enlightened homogeneity is
at a seeming stand-still. The homogeneity of the whole race in its
absolute entirety, is the key-note of the life which is to be here, on
this mortal earth, and thus every experience of individuals or of
nations becomes of vast importance.
Every event, small or great, that serves to illustrate the possibility
of fellowship, and brotherhood among the children of men, is a
milestone on the way to this recognition of the homogeneity of the
human race. In obedience to this law, this demand of the evolutionary
forces our brave sons, and lovely daughters, are, all unconsciously to
themselves, following the beckoning hand of noblest progress toward
peace, and mutuality, and are allying themselves with the
representatives of races and peoples hitherto considered foreign and
unrelated to us, in all ways save the commercial. What bonds shall
ever be forged between the nations of the earth that can supersede such
ties of love and fealty to family and home?
The external aspects of these alliances, though yielding honors, and
coveted opportunities, are of the smaller importance compared with the
amazing factors of peace and amity between the nations that are
silently and certainly working themselves out toward the beautiful
exemplification of the universal Fatherhood of God, the
inextinguishable sentiment of the final unity of his earthly children.
* * * * * *
One of the strangest phases of human life here is the almost universal
resistance to improvement. But this conservative attitude is also a
balance, prevents running off on tangents.