The Progress., 1893-03-04

that the world is better today than 1t
was yesterday, and that there is a con-
tinuous progress through the centuries.
As | study history l see man slowly
emerging from a more brutal into a
less brutal condition. The apostle cries
in anguish of heart, "Who shall de-
liver me from the body Of this death,
from this power inherent chained 70
me- which drags me down, and with
which / must forever wrestler Strug-
gle and conflict are the very requisites of
progress, and there can be no real strug-
gle without real progress. Man Is all
the time making this struggle, and
through the years he has had this eternal
battle between the spirit and flesh, and
progress has been the inevitable result,
because the spirit must at last conquer
that which is its inferior.
MORAL FORCES GROWING STRONGER.
We see from history that brutal strife
is eliminated as man makes progress.
We used to go to war because we want
ed to fight. We picked a quarrel, and
when there was no excuse we found one
for the fun of it. We did it because Of
the brutal powers that were unsubdued,
uncultured, untaught. We Dc Just as
mean and bad things today, but we do
them more scientifically. We have made
progress in methods. We do not sharpen
our swords now; we have a law against
it. We shoot man to pieces with
gatling gun. We do not use poisoned
daggers, but dynamite bombs, and save
the trouble of burying him. But i'll all
these things there is something to be
found called real progress. You cannot
get up a war as easily now; there must
be a moral cause for it. As we look
back we see that the drift of the ages has
been toward peace and life and civiliza-
ton. The eyes of literature today are
on the underworld, the weaker man in
the battle of life, and toward the solu-
tions of his problems the heart and brain
of the human race are now being concen-
trated.
Then we have made progress in the
development of true religion. We used
to burn people at the stake. Now we
have our heresy trials, but we have taken
the literal fire away, although we ex-
pect to burn them in hell forever. But
even in this we recognize remarkable
progress. We have gone beyond the old
days, when men were tortured and
racked with pain and cast out and sawed
asunder and suffered horrible physical
tortures. While | rejoice in this and
am far removed from pessimist, yet it
is a sad fact that we have much still TO
do. Sometimes we think the millennium
is already here, and that the world is
good enough now. No, my friend; there
is much yet to do.
The spirit of man StW grodnS beneath
an alCflh burden of brutal inheritance.
1t is true of both the individual and
society.
THERE is A SAVAGE UNDERNEATH.
First-Scratch a man today beneath
his clothes, and you will find a savage.
You need not go deeper than the cut Of
his coat, the mere outer makeup Of the
man. In our present civilization, after
all, we depend apparently more upon
mere clothes than upon the principles
that should animate and govern real
life.
am alarmed when think how much
our civilization depends upon our tailors
| went out the other day to Carlisle, Pa,
and studied those Indians. 1t alarmed
me-they ere so much like our own
folks, cut o% the same piece of material.
Why, saw in that school magnificent
young men, who came there four years
ago dressed as their ancestors were 400
years ago. | saw three young men who
came to that institution in the primitive
blanket of the savage dressed in magnif-
icent uniform, and they were hand
somer, brainier looking men than doz-
ems of dudes | have seen on Fifth ave-
nue.. Yet those men on Fifth avenue
are the favored heirs of centuries of civ
ilization, and those children of the for
ests, of the plains, came down with their
primitive blankets wrapped around their
half naked forms but few years ago. One
of those boys had a picture of an aunt and
a cousin far out in the Indian Territory
a mother ard her baby. The little pa
poose was as handsome as my own child
at home, and as | looked in that Indian
mothers face saw lines as delicate-tle
stamp of Gods image cut as clear-as !
have seen it in thousands of mothers
faces in our own favored centers Of life.
Yet remember how we turned our gat-
ling guns on those mothers who sheltered
those babes behind their backs as they
retreated before the awful fire Of those
guns and fell torn and riddled with the
bullets of civilized people. tell you,
my friends, The matter of the cut of your
. clothes-how much of your boasted civ
ilization really rests therel If you take
away the tailor and the soap, / do net
know where we would be. Contrast that
Indian world that you call a savage world
and your ordinary "Bowery bum" Take
the Indian with his blanket, and after
you have cut his hair, and washed his
face, and put on him decent suit of
clothes, he is far superior to the ''bum.
After all, our individual refnements
are often but the fnesse of the brute.