Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1882-09-19
Progress and Happiness.

Indeed, the opportunities and advan-
tages of the age are so immense, the in.
ventions so prodigious, the convenience
so universal and supreme, that the
observer constantly looks to see if there
is corresponding advance in human
welfare. The Arabian stories are out
done. Ali Bahia and Aladdin are famil-
lar heroes. We own all the amulets.
We have mastered all the magic. But
there are those who reflected, as they
read those wonderful tales, that while it
was pleasant for Fortunatus to have his
purse, and rapturous for the Prince to
awake the sleeping beauty, there was
apparently the same old sorrow and
suffering on every side. ALI the magic
ended in individual gain, and, although
fairy power haunted Bagdad, Bagdad
was not fairy-land.
We know charming and venerable
lady who used to go to Albany in a
sloop, and she has sometimes been
week upon the way. We leave New
York at half past 10, and dine in the
capital at 2. Another old friend made
her bridal tour to Niagara sixty years
ago. But her granddaugh can
make theirs to the Staubbach and TERM
10 shorter time. We know of the riot
in Alexandria before it is suppressed.
Longfellow, Darwin, Emerson, Carl
baldi, die, and Oregon and Naples know
it simultaneously. Fifty years ago, if
early-winter nightfall overlook Congress
in session, man toiled long and labori-
ously to make darkness visible with oil
and candles now one touch floods the
great hall with day. It is a symbol of
the sudden flooding of the whole world
with the news of the moment. From
his office, his shop, his home, a man
with his telephone talks with his friend,
his lawyer, his grocer, his doctor, miles
away. No fancied convenience in his
daily employment occurs to him that is
not already fact and waiting for him to
buy. His newspaper, a library for 5
cents, is but type Of all. 1t is the age
of miracle.
Is 1t also the age of greater happl-
ness2 Is the blessing universal? Does
the magnificent and marvellous genius of
invention bind men closer together? We
put girdle round the earth IN forty
minutes. Is the swift journey one of
general blessing? Walking along the
street of palaces that leads to- the beau
tiful metropolitan pleasure ground,
marking the elaborate workmanship, the
costly splendor of detail, catching
glimpses of rooms rich with the spoils
of every zone, bright with exquisite
decoration, seeing the silken and laced
and jeweled figures that step from state
ly carriages, and seem to float on air
like spangles on sunbeam, do we feel
that it is the purse of Fortunatus, good
for himself and his family alone, or that
all this splendor is but the flower of a
general prosperity, a universal content !?
1t is momentous question, which senti-
ment, not political economy, must an
swer. Sentiment rules the world. It is
the sense of injustice, not demonstra-
ton of supply and demand, that up
heaves society. The golden age was
not that In which inventive genius
wrought miracles, and when the Alps, a
region of dazzling icy heights and cold
dark valleys, was the symbol of human
society. 1t was prosperous, but it was
pro <perity of mutual good will, of friend
: ~ IN er' -, of neral co operation 1t
was Team OF pagans But 1t was "a
Chri tan worldsp which they bore one
another's burdens. Telegraphs and
electric lights and cheap periodicals
alone will not restore it. But the same
spirit, and only the same spirit, will win
Astrea back again.-Editor's Easy
Chair, In Harper'S Magazine.