The record-union., 1899-08-16
PRESENT. DAY THOUGHTS.
BY G. Grosvenor Dave.


The New Man-Aged.-He walks
down the hill without idle protest for
he knows that one long procession of
human being5 have gone the same way.
Ii ever, for moment, a question arises
IN his mind as to why it should all be,
ne calmly answers it himself by de-
claring that he is no more worthy than
others to be excepted from the great
rule of progress. Therefore, though he
IS conscious that the buoyancy of
youth and the virility of manhood have
gone by forever, the western sky is to
him no sky of menace, but a sky of
promise, concealing greater things be-
yond the portals of the sunset. He
knows that the sunset of nature gets
its glory from the particles that have
been caught UP from the mass of the
waters and now shine back a beauty
that to the whole is possible; for are
not the clouds with all their varied
tints only water? And in the sunset he
sees humanity ever beckoned onward to
peaceful night and another day, by
the beauty that shines back upon us
all from those who have been lifted up.
Yet in humility each particle of those
only and colorless. So he realizes that
only as transformed life is shined
upon by broader purpose than itself
and is glorified by a power that goes
on While human power ceases-thus
only can a life end be as it should be.
Content, therefore. he knows his own
life seems fruitless, he knows that no
matter how feeble its protest against
pxyi re 0t, Of
the broader purpose of humanity will
take that effort to itself and out of the
many efforts in one make sunset a hope
and promise of better things yet to
be on earth that is left behind
The new man-aged-protests against
the fossil tendency that makes men find
the admirable things only in the bur-
led past-that vague and limitless term
called 'the good old days" The new
man may indeed dig in the ancient
stratifcations of life, but his tendency
is to discover in the past of humanity,
just as the scientist does in the rocks,
mainly saurians, ichthyosauri, masto-
dons, pterodactyls-things that tore
and lorded it through fear and that
affrighted. He says that the good times
are these times; that there never were
any better, and with the eye of the
seer he fortells that, though in the
conceit of our own doings, we think the
pinnacle of humanity has been reach
ed, yet there are times still to dawn
that shall transcend ours much as ours
have transcended those that went be-
fore.
The new -aged-believes in hu-
manity with his whole soul, not as be-
ing yet perfect. not even within sight
of perfection, but as having its sub
stance permeated with the possibilities
of perfection. And for this reason he
can cheerfully lay down the task that
he has attempted, and at which he has
progressed, for he knows that all good
work is but a preliminary step to bet
ter, and that no work is lost. His faith
may indeed seem foolishness to those
who have not the eye to see things in
visible. His faith is simply the faith
of the scientist who sees in the humb-'
lest and most hidden plant a law at
work that absolutely prevents waste;
change of form indeed there may be
but ainihilation never; so that though
an effort may vanish much as a body
resolves itself into its original gases,
yet nothing is lost This is his faith
and he clings to it as the answer that
death gives to the human questioning.
He must believe in watchfulness over
things moral and spiritual by the great
architect of all or he will curse God
for allowing things moral and spiritual
ever to enter the human heart, only
after all to be vanishing mockeries of
human effort
But let us touch for little while on
some less serious aspects of the new
managed The young love him be-
cause he does not come into their pres
ence to depress. His head indeed may
be gray, but his heart is young and out
of the fullness of the heart the mouth
speaketh; so that in all things which
beckon youths forward on the beauteous
way of high life, he is with them not
to discourage but to cheer, not to prate
of better past. but to give them un-
derstanding of that past in order that
the present may be more beautiful and
useful. Age deters him, of course, from