Jesus taught that human lives can be redeemed from sterility to
fruitfulness, by an infusion of diverse life. Why should not this
principle be even more valuable in morals than in nature?
“To inoculate sterile ground and make it bring forth fruit
in abundance is one of the latest achievements of American
science,” says G. H. Grosvenor in _The National Geographic
Magazine_. “Some of man’s most dread diseases--smallpox,
diphtheria, plague, rabies--have been vanquished by inoculation,
and now inoculation is to cure soil that has been worn out and
make it fertile and productive again. The germs that bring
fertility are mailed by the Department of Agriculture in a
small package like a yeast-cake. The cake contains millions of
dried germs. The farmer who receives the cake drops it into a
barrel of clean water; the germs are revived and soon turns
the water to a milky white. Seeds of clover, peas, alfalfa,
or other leguminous plants that are then soaked in this milky
preparation are endowed with marvelous strength. Land on which,
for instance, the farmer with constant toil had obtained alfalfa
only a few inches high, when planted with these inoculated seeds
will produce alfalfa several feet high and so rich that the
farmer does not recognize his crop.” (Text.)
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