Akron daily Democrat. [volume] (Akron, Ohio) 1892-1902, 1899-12-07

dS places 10 De visited Dy CURIOSITY
seekers, as further back in the annals
OF time tourists visited the fortress
where the prisoner of Chillon was in
carcerated. or Devils island, where
Dreyfus endured four years of cruel
ty."
After passing on amid columns and
statues erected in memory Of those
who have been mighty for goodness in
the worlds history, the highest and
the most exquisitely sculptured those
in honor of such as have been most
effectual in saving life or improving
life rather than OF those renowned
for destroying life, we come upon an
other group of buildings that must
have been transformed from their orig
inal shape and adapted to other uses.
What is all this?" we ask our escort.
He answers: "Those were almshouses
and hospitals, but accuracy in making
and prudence in running machinery Of
all sorts have almost abolished the list
Of casualties, and sobriety and indus
try have nearly abolished pauperism,
SO that those buildings, which once
were hospitals and almshouses, have
been turned into beautiful homes for
the less prospered, and if you will look
in you will see the poorest table has
abundance and the smallest wardrobe
luxury and the harp, waiting to have
its strings thrummed, leaning against
the piano, waiting for its keys to be
fingered. Yes, we have on the shelves
of our free libraries the full story Of
disDensaries, and crutches, and clinics,
and surgery, and what time of suf-
fering there must have been on those
battlefelds of Sedan and Gettysburg
and South Africa one or two hundred
years ago.
A New World Born.
Hospitals and almshouses must
have been a necessity once, but they
would be useless now. And you see
all the swamps have been drained. The
sewerage of the great towns has been
perfected. And the worlds climate
is SO improved that there are no pneu-
monias to come out Of the cold or
rheumatisms out of the dampness or
fevers out of the heat. Consumptions
banished, pneumonias banished, diph-
iberia banished, ophthalmia banished,
neuralgias banished. AS near as /
can tell from what l have read, our
atmosphere Of this century is min
Cling Of the two months Of May and
October of the nineteenth century"
And we believe what our escort says,
for as we pass on we find health glow
ing in every cheek, and beaming in
every eye, and springing in every step,
and 5articulating in, every utterance,
and you and l whisper to each other as
our escort has his attention drawn to
some new sunrise upon the morning
sky, and we say, each to the other:
"Who would believe that this is the
world we lived in over hundred years
ago? Look at those men and women
we pass on the road. How improved
the human race! Such beauty! Such
strength! Such gracefulness! Such
geniality! Faces without the mark Of
one sorrow! Cheeks that seem never
to have been wet by one tear!- A race
sublimated! A new world born~
But say to our escort: 'Did all this
merely happen SO? Are all the good
here spontaneously good? How did
you get the old shipwrecked world
afoat again, out of the breakers into
the smooth seas?" mo, no." responds
our twenty-first century escort. ..'Do
you see those towers? Those are the
towers of churches, towers of reforma-
tory institutions, towers Of Christian
schools. Walk with me, and let us en-
ter some of these temples" We enter,
and 1 find that the music is in the ma
jor key. and none Of it in the minor.
GLORIA in Excelsis'' rising above "Glo-
ria in Excelsis." Tremolo stop in the
organ not so much used as the trumpet
stop. More of Ariel than Of Naomi. More
chants than dirges.
But say to our twenty-irst century
escort: 81 cannot understand this.
Have these worshipers no sorrows. or
have they forgotten their SORROWS"
Our escort responds: Sorrows! Why,
they had sorrows more than you could
count, but by a divine illumination
that the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries never enjoyed they under
stand the uses of sorrow and are COM
such as previous centuries never expe-
rienced."
Prophecy FuIfIled.
l ask again of the interpreter, HAS
death been banished from the world?"
The answer is, mo; but people die
now only when the physical machinery
is worn out and they realize it is time
to go and that they are certainly and
without doubt going into world
where they will be infinitely better
of and are to live in a mansion that
awaits their immediate occupancy"
But how was all this effected?" ask
our escort. Answer: by foods of gos-
pei power. You who lived in the
century never saw a re-
viyal Of religion to be compared with
what occurred in the latter part of the
twentieth and the early part of the
twenty-first century. The prophecy
has been fulfilled that a nation shall
be born in dey'-that is, 100000
or 20,000,000 or 40,o00.000 people con-
verted in "a hours"
AS you and l see in this terrestrial
visitation Of the coming centuries that
the church has. under God, accom-
plished so much, we ask our escort, the
spirit of the twenty-first century, to
show US the different kinds Of