The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-12-17

my earliest days until now are almost
 like the passage to another planet
 changes in the arts of war and the arts
 of peace, and In the whole comfort, con- IVenience and healthfulness of living and working, in sanitary precautions and in the relief of the sick and the suffering For single eXample-I have seen the
 first surgeon of the country chip away
 with his chisel and mallet at the necro-
 sis Of the tibia by the half hour, with
 nothing to deaden the pain or prevent
 the suppuration, till one by one we Icrept into the open air from very faint ness.
 My memory goes back to the flint
 lock gun and the smooth-bore cannon, to the sickle and the scythe, to the open
 fireplace, the universal wood fire and
 the tinder-boX; for I saw the light a dozen years before the first friction match emitted light. I heard the hum of the spinning wheel, and have seen the shuttle fly back and forth in the hand loom.
 1 WHEN WE HAD TWENTY STATES. The land in which we live has mean While enlarged the number of its states rom twenty to forty-fve, multiplied it's population eight or nine-fold, pushed it's area from the Atlantic 5000 miles to the Pacific and thrust out the horns of Alas ka, 5000 miles beyond. And the most extraordinary thing of all was the won- der-Worklng providence during the mid dle thirty years which solved the insol- uble problem. when the slave power, in it's attempt to nullify the constitution and the nation, stultifed and nullified itself.
 Human power has been multiplied by mechanism until one mans work re- leases ten, or, it may be, a hundred oth- CTS, and the helmsman of a great ocean steamer holds the reins of nearly 30 600 horses. And so all business has taken gigantic leaps. The importer can order daily from London or Paris, and the country trader replenish his stock every week instead of twice year. The whole world has come within speaking distance. Sixty years ago it took a let ter two days from Boston to Hanover; twenty years ago sent message from Jerusalem to Chicago in the same fore- noon, and the money lately paid in Bos- ton for Armenian relief on one day was ready in Constantinople the next.
 It has been the main era of the great work of foreign missions. During my lifetime the Bible has been rendered at least into 300 or 400 tongues, in which it has been printed, and probably one-half i Of these have been first reduced to writ ing for the purpose. Centers of light | have thus been lxindled in every part of l the globe, till about nine-tenths of the | worlds inhabitants now have Gods | words in their own language.
 Tn the heavens an eighth planet has been added to the known seven; the | four asteroids multiplied to 400 and the object glass expanded from four inches | or thereabouts to forty to tell us, it is said, of the 100000 suns all bound to- gether in common bonds by the mighty | hands of God.
 But I must come nearer home. Of | the changes in this village I will not take time to say very much I can think of but one person now living here who lived here sixty years ago. The three most notable villagers whom re- call were Mills Olcott, a gentleman of large ability, hospitality and influence, father-in-law of Rufus Choate, the emil nent jurist; Joseph Bell and w. H. Dun- can. Colonel Brewster, another gentle man of the old school, sheriff of the county and long marshal of the college, of military carriage and potent voice.
 OUR GAIN
 '1n looking over the changes of eighty years what shall be said of the retro spect? Immensity of progress-first, second, intellectual and I may add, moral. Life is longer, life is easier. fA il,, sr,vI nxo l willingly go back to the environments of that earlier time, although we did not mind it then. They were tough and so were we.
 But is life happier now? Taking the world as a whole, and the civilized world on the average, yes. While no men are happier than some men then.