The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1898-12-05
LaWOf
Development.
HISTORY.
1t Is a Striking Example
OF this Fact.

Rev Almon Gunnison at the morn
ing service at the First Universalist
Church, yesterday, spoke ON the
theme THE law of development" aud
drew from the subject several timely
lessons. He said in part:
Most of the failures of modern life
come from the mistaken idea that
progress is a tradition, rather than
, a growth. We attempt to build a civil
ization rather than develop it; to
bring in the kingdom of heaven by
storm and assault rather than by lea
vening the lump. Nature is mans best
teacher-and nature seldom builds. She
| evolves; she develops. She enlarges by
! growth, here a little. there little,
! changing the seed into the blade, the
| blade into the corn in the ear, the corn
| into human strength human strength
/ into houses, cities, empires, institutions,
the great complexity of modern civil
! iZation with it's illimitable forces and
/ its multiform blessings.
| Take whatever realm Of life you may,
/ the same law Of unfolding and enlarge
:
! has not come to its place from the
cradle. The world of industry is ,
world of evolution, and the most COM
/ plicated machines OF our shops have
come through an ascending series, from
the rudest implements Of savage
hands
Always and everywhere there is The
upward growth. Slow, so slow that
life and progress seem to stop the re
/ inc. of n
recede to q barbaric past but only to
/ gather force and volume for a larger
advance. There is an instinct in all
the forces of human progress, science,
! industry the arts of war and the arts
! of peace, like the perennial instinct in
the seed, which makes it climb into i
soul Of grass and flowers.
The art of government shows this.
There has come through centuries of
despotism and tyranny, a self educa-
ton and self-mastery-ma beng fit
ted for freedom by being made free.
How strikingly has this been seen in
the government of our own land. The
revolution of 1776 brought us face to
! face with the responsibility of self
government The machinery of ad-
ministration was rude, but as tbs
Years went on, men learned the art OF
ruleTship and the states became more
complex in mechanism and the gen
eral government took on more subtle
and complicated functions.
The great territory of the middle
states was added; alarmists said we
could not assimilate this mass, but the
leaven of free institutions leavened il
at length The Louisiana purchase
was made, and a territory larger thar
an empire came into our possession
Here was this strange, semi savage
peoples-a barbara native stock, witt
Eated by admixtures of the Latin race
unsympatheticy alien in speech an(
methods Of life. But the free schoo
and the SLOW assimilations of the years
has wrought over that territory an(
people and made them homogeneous
with our American life.
The same story has been repeated
with the emancipated race of the south
and with that great emigration Which
has flooded our shores from every lane
; in Europe. But these men have beer
educated into freedom and made fl fol
liberty 1t may be an Gnwise thing
for this victorious nation to take under
it's care the Philippine islands, witt
their teeming millions. 1t may violate
the traditions of our country, it may
/ enlbroil us with foreign nations. it may
give lis with a duty that shall be more
onerOus than pro.itabla-but ! have ne
sympathy with the pessimist who says
that the genius and adaptability of the
United States cannot govern, civilize
and administer colonies, be they dis
tant or near ] have no sympathy
, with a policy which would bind the
present to the traditions Of a remote
past which confesses that the present
! generation shall be guided by thf
dead hands of men who have been in
: their graves for a hundred years
: Washington was great, but Washing.
5 ton lived before the sea had beer
brldged, before steam had brought the
ends Of the earth together, and, wide
as was his vision, it was not broaC
: enough to see our land covered witt
cities, and its commerce seeking outlet
z INTO distant lands. He had not seer
the versatile capability Of the peoplf
IN their maturing whom he only knew
III their infancy, and his dead hand
great as it was should not guide tho
destinles OF the living present. [ be.
lleVe that no extension of our territory
can impair the capability of our peo,
pie, and that in proportion to our in.
| creaslng needs, so viii increase ON
{ strength, and it is simply doubt and no
faith-it is the timidity of age, not tn,
hope of youth that in these DAVIS a
aeSti.ly IS uttering Cassandra, wall,
: over the future of cur country.