The Indianapolis sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1880-1904, 1885-02-01
By c. Il. REKyK, PLYMOUTH, IND.

Written for the Sunday Sentinel
Affairs in Europe seem to be assuming
the form of very serious com plications. Do
yen think the Nations there will drift into
war;" said a friend to me lately In the
course CT conver alton. The question brings
forward q view of conditions worthy of the
most serious consideration.
The nations of Europe do not feel like go.
ing TO war. None Of them see prospect for
gain in any war; while the end of war is en-
tirely beyond the bounds of any calculation.
Modern tendency is toward arbitration; but
that tendency will have its period of domi-
nancy and be followed by one of be,liger-
ency. The ress ons for and expediencies
governing alliances, are constantly chang
ing; and in case of war between any of the
Nations in Europe. the change of conditions
would be SUCH that change of alliances
would be inevitable, and ageneral war would
be likely to result. No Nation in Europe
will engage in war if it can avoid it.
But, there are forces in operation that can
not be controlled. What the result of their
action will be is beyond all possible divining
or ar probable guess.
The world has entered upon the beginning
of a new civilization, and its character and
progress can not be prophesied Centuries
ago, the forces leading to civilization began
in the Orient and have spread to the Occi.
dent, eliminating in the civilization OF to-
day. 1t has rolled around the earth and
completed circle.
In the Western world, on q part of this
continent ii has brought civil and religious
liberty. On the Southern continent, former
barbarism is succeeded by q condition of
chronic anarchy - religious superstitions
combating ell efforts to secure liberty.
In the East, the struggle for civilization is
beginning anew, and when the wave shall
kind of civilization will exist in the place
of that now existing? THE brotherhood OF
III al" has been the basis of ethics in later
generations with rs. The equilibrium be-
tween good and evil has been maintained.
vice and immortality seem to have been
gilded rather than lessened. As the world
las been brought into close neighborhood
by steam and electricity the moral sensibil-
lilies have become somewhat deadened in
certain spects-probably result of the
meeting and conflict of ethical creeds and
moral practices as the different peoples come
TO know each other. Great disasters and
great crimes do not shock us-or only mo-
NJ entarily. They follow each other so rap
Idly We have not time to contemplate them
and they passed with glance.
They create some pity which We evlnce by
eIviIg practical relief In the one case, and q
distrust of all men entrusted with execution
or the law, and We call in Judge Lynch in
the other csse. Are We retrograding? Has
Materialism obtained the ascendency? Have
civilized condition spent themselves and are
We falling into the shadows as did all pro-
gfessve peoples before US, who reached their
zenith and passed away, leaving ruins which
1t hiss taken centuries to resurrect from the
covering beaped on them by uncivilized
successors? 1t LOOKS like it. On the extreme
Eastern limits Progress has begun working
with new material and is presenting some
phenomenal results.
The praying machines of Japan are
being neglected and hundreds
Of "a her e1.i Buddhist saasi. ,.. Temple ppos
tie government has appointed q commits
sion TO inquire into the Christian religion,
with view to the adoption of it or so much
as may be found to be an improvement on
Buddhism. What have we here as a phase
If the new material? Individuals and ns-
tons have suffered humiliation rather than
yield one moment to a demand that they
change their religious opinions. Nothing
bas so stirred men and women as an attack
on their beliefs and customs of q religious
Iature, and nothing has been so hard to over
come. But here, We have people-the vot
aries of faith for hundreds:of years-who
treat it as q matter OF business. Isolated
from the world until within generation or
two, they come face to face with new re-
ligions and new practices. and they set TO
work as a matter of business not only for
The individual, but for the public policy
to investigate, with a view to adopting the
new if it appears to be preferable to the old?
What kind of a mentality is it that gives the
first impetus to the new civilization?
At the same time, the struggle between
despotism and liberty grows fercer in Asia
Africa, and Eastern Europe Slowly, bat
surely. the spirit of Revolution moves on
ward, becoming sensible to more and more
slowly but surely do the numbers increase
who gain in knowledge, in cunning, in cour.
age, in desperation, in feelings of indiffer-
ence to Punishment imprisonment and
death Slowly but surely terrorism is max
ing the reign and the life Of mighty rulers
and their counselors more aud more uncer-
tain; and the invisible hands that kill grow
more numerous and more skillful every
day.
Your space will not permit me to refer to
other unusual conditions. Take the men
iality of japan, China, India, Egypt, Turkey,
Afghanlstan, Persia 0nd eastern Russia, and
other social and political conditions of the
people there governed and covering; and
with the civilization of Western Europe on
one side and the moral forces flowing thence,
and from America on the other, starting &C
tive operations through the mentality OF
such q people as the Japanese, what will be
the moral and political philosophy that will
rise as wall on either hand? When the
mentality as well as physical results fswing
from the millions in Central Africa, who sre
being brought into the arena-an unknown
force-shali become q factor of monstrous
power, and the conflict Of interests now be-
ginning, in the efforts of the nations of
Western Europe to apportion the dark con-
tinent among themselves, what will be the
outgrowtb? What ideas of human rights will
obtain? What beliefs as to hereafter?
What doctrines as to mine and thine ?
While the West retrogrades and the East sd-
vances in civilization, in the centuries to
come, what will be the basis for ethics and
- 49, H.