# Looking Backward, 2000-1887/Chapter 26

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CHAPTER XXVI.
I THINK if a person were ever excusable for losing track of the days of the week, the circumstances excused me. Indeed, if I had been told that the method of reckoning time had been wholly changed and the days were now counted in lots of five, ten, or fifteen instead of seven, I should have been in no way surprised after what I had already heard and seen of the twentieth century. The first time that any inquiry as to the days of the week occurred to me, was the morning following the conversation related in the last chapter. At the breakfast table Dr. Leete asked me if I would care to hear a sermon.
"Is it Sunday, then?" I exclaimed.
"Yes," he replied. "It was Friday of last week you see when we made the lucky discovery of the buried chamber to which we ​Page:Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Bellamy).pdf/386 ​Page:Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Bellamy).pdf/387 ​Page:Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Bellamy).pdf/388 ​Page:Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Bellamy).pdf/389 ​Page:Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Bellamy).pdf/390 ​Page:Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Bellamy).pdf/391 ​Page:Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Bellamy).pdf/392 ​Page:Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Bellamy).pdf/393 ​Page:Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Bellamy).pdf/394 ​Page:Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Bellamy).pdf/395 ​Page:Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Bellamy).pdf/396 ​Page:Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Bellamy).pdf/397 ​Page:Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Bellamy).pdf/398 ​Page:Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Bellamy).pdf/399 ​Page:Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Bellamy).pdf/400 ​Page:Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Bellamy).pdf/401 ​Page:Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Bellamy).pdf/402 ​Page:Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Bellamy).pdf/403 ​Page:Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Bellamy).pdf/404 ​Page:Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Bellamy).pdf/405 ​Page:Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Bellamy).pdf/406 ​Page:Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Bellamy).pdf/407 ​Page:Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Bellamy).pdf/408 ​Page:Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Bellamy).pdf/409 ​Page:Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Bellamy).pdf/410 ​Page:Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Bellamy).pdf/411 ​Page:Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Bellamy).pdf/412 ​Page:Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Bellamy).pdf/413 ​Page:Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Bellamy).pdf/414 ​Page:Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Bellamy).pdf/415 ​Page:Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Bellamy).pdf/416 ​The betterment of mankind from generation to generation, physically, mentally, morally, is recognized as the one great object su premely worthy of effort and of sacrifice. We believe the race for the first time to have entered on the realization of God's ideal of it, and each generation must now be a step upward.
"Do you ask what we look for when unnumbered generations shall have passed away? I answer, the way stretches far before us but the end is lost in light. For twofold is the return of man to God 'who is our home,' the return of the individual by the way of death, and the return of the race by the fulfilment of its evolution, when the divine secret hidden in the germ shall be perfectly unfolded. With a tear for the dark past, turn we then to the dazzling future, and, veiling our eyes, press forward. The long and weary winter of the race is ended. Its summer has begun. Humanity has burst the chrysalis. The heavens are before it."