A constant struggle is going on in nature, and those animals
best adapted to their conditions will be the ones to survive
and transmit their superior characteristics to subsequent
generations. This is natural selection. This same law governed
man in his early history, and in almost the same way as it
governs the brute kingdom. From the time that the tribal
relation is established among men the struggle for existence
ceases to be one of individuals and becomes one of tribes. It
little profits an individual to be strong if he belongs to a
weak tribe; it little profits a tribe to be composed of strong
individuals if they fail to work in harmony with each other.
Natural selection will still preserve the strongest, but it
will be the strongest tribe. It is mutual trust, fidelity,
honesty, concert in action, patriotism, disregard of death,
that form the sinews of the nation, personal strength becoming
a subordinate factor. Wolves hunt in companies, and together
fearlessly attack animals which would easily master them
separately. Insects live in communities and tho individually
they are weak, by concert of action they make themselves
formidable to the strongest of animals. But the central feature
of the teaching of Christ was the law of love. It constantly
appears in His words--now clothed in one parable now in another.
The new command given to man was to love his enemy, to do good
to them that hated him, to help the weak, to pardon the erring,
to resist evil, and to give to him that asked. Henceforth it
was to be the peacemaker who should be blest, and he who wished
to be greatest was to be servant of all.--H. W. CONN,
_Methodist Review_.
(2991)
See UNITY, STRENGTH IN.